Music

Taylor-made

"Flag" James Taylor

On the cover of his last album he was baby-faced and wide-eyed. So was the music. On the album there's a photo of James Taylor looking like a prison inmate with a steely glint in his eye. One supposes the music is meant to reflect that change. From gentle soft-edged music to a rawer and crisper sound.

If that is what Taylor is trying to do then he is not successful. But that does not make the album a bad one. If you like James Taylor you will like this album—despite the increased use of electronics and pounding rhythm and bass the album in indisputably James Taylor.

James Taylor listeners have changed since the days he made the cover of Time magazine. The gentle flower people have largely gone and grown up. But James Taylor hasn't really changed, except that now a Karori housewife is as likely to be listening to JT as any dope-smoking hippy who rolls his own and calls himself a vegetarian.

Flag is a pleasant enough, even innocuous album produced by Peter Asher (who in the space of 3 albums took Ronstadt to the heights then threw her back down again.) But it is well-produced muzak of the first order. If J Taylor really wanted to get a rawer sound he should have gone back to his earlier guitar-plucking You've Got A Friend" style. But no, Asher takes over and drowns the album in overproduced numbers.

The first side is what, in the modern jargon, might be called the "fast side". Instead of the willing Handy Man of the last album here is the hard rock businessman of Company Man. It's another song about what its really like in the rock business—a statement all rock artists seem obliged to make these days just to prove they are still human. Day Tripper is a disco version of the Beatles song but like most of the album it is lost in the slickness of the production. Johnnie Comes Back and I Will Not Lie For You are a re-hash, in a slightly heavier form, of what Taylor has done before. The side closes with Is That The Way You Look? a dreadful and thankfully short piece that one suspects is meant to be clever. It is not.

Side two is much better. The songs are much more solid but, again, there is nothing new. BSUR, Rainy Day Man and Mill worker are all catchy, nice James Taylor songs. The Goffin-King song Up on the Roof is the single from the album Again Asher is over-indulgent but this time it seems strangely appropriate, largely due to the skillful string arrangement by Arif Mardin. But it's annoying because this is exactly the type of song Taylor should be singing simply

"And at night the stars they put on a show for free,

And darling you can share it all with me..."

The album closes with Sleep Come Free Me, another prisoner in gaol song.

Like the last Ronstadt album this is a Peter Asher product full of slickness and the Californian freeway sound. Even the typeface on the lyric sheet is the same as that used on the last 3 Ronstadt, as well as numerous other Asher, records.

I do not think Taylor is a particularly great artist. He constructs his songs somewhat predictably and is unadventurous. Certainly he has not produced anything up to his Sweet Baby James and Mus Slide Slim days. Perhaps this album is simply a case of recognising limitations and trying to work within them. But James Taylor is trying within those limitations to be something he is not suited to—slick.

Still, if you are into James Taylor, if you like him playing whilst you do the vacuuming or drink coffee late at night, this album, or at least side two, will not disappoint you. It's nice to know you can yawn and rely on James Taylor to keep you going.

Paul McHugh

Record supplied courtesy of CBS Records.