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Salient. Victoria University Newspaper. Volume 38, Number 14. June 20, 1975

Playing Possum: Carly Simon — Elecktra 7E-1033 — First Impressions: Olivia Newton-John — Interfusion L 35375

Playing Possum: Carly Simon

Elecktra 7E-1033

First Impressions: Olivia Newton-John

Interfusion L 35375

Of recent years 'rock' has become an extremely convenient term for us to use about music we like. But try to pin it down to styles or influences and it becomes very elusive. I suspect that what distinguishes rock musicians from your straightforward pop singer lies further back than the kind of thing they play, and it's something to do with their attitude towards their music and audience, their rejection of standard ideas about entertainment. For example, in a recent review about Bad Company's 'Straight-shooter', a writer wrote that rock music could provide a good milieu for getting laid—only to have it mutilated by some moral sub-editor to 'meeting girls'. I realise that the glossy advertising sheet he writes for considers it has some sort of duty towards the uptight natives, but why can't he write 'Fuck' if he wants to, especially as such an idea is integral to the rock ethos.

Another thing about this type of entertainment is that it must never suprise the audience, but reinforce the prevailing ideas about melody, 'good singing', love and the roles of man and woman. Carly Simon has a song on her new album with a promising story line: first verse dinner at a table for two, second verse breakfast ditto. And the moral punch line contained in the first song up, 'After the Storm', isn't even some Jim Reeves masochism about being punished for extra-marital sex by separation. Instead, it's a more up to date line—

'You're tossing me around
You come on like a hurricane
I'm settleing like a weather vane
After the storm
And your body feels so warm
After the storm'—

for Carly Simon's persona is that of the nice girl who finds fulfillment through her man—none of that woman's liberation nonsense. She could have come straight from the pages of Vogue. That impression is strengthened by the grainy black and white cover which shows her in a preparatory state for???, and further reinforced by Slave, a cute ditty guaranteed to make the strongest willed male chauvanist buckle at the knees.

But love comic readers don't buy anyone as supposedly hip as Carly Simon, even if her claim to integrity has been somewhat compromised by the rapid shift in attitude evinced between 'Hotcakes' and 'Playing Possum,'. They are more likely to settle for Olivia Newton-John, the Australian protege of Hank, Bruce and Cliff. Her thing on this 'Great Hits' ellpee is to some fine, gentle songs by such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Don McLean and John Denver and package them for people who watch television at 8pm on Saturdays. To do so all the rough edges and finer tones of the originals have to go and in the Denver case it's homogenized beyond homogeneity. The point about this type of music is that the satisfactions it provides for its audience don't really have anything to do with rock music, much less make a statement that could be interpreted as meaningful. The soothing feeling generated by Olivia's own brand of bland pop puree could just as easily have come from a magazine story, so I would suggest that the above mentioned 'sub' editor take one copy of his sheet, one copy of 'First Impressions', roll them into a tube and ...

(Thanks to Colin Morris on the Terrace for supplying a review copy of 'Playing Possum'—discounts of 10% for students, and there is the occasional bargain as well.)