Styx 11: Styx

Reviewed by Graeme Simpson

I wonder how many people have bought this album on the basis of the two tracks that have been given quite a bit of (deserved) airplay on Wellington radio stations of late. If you have, I hope you weren't disappointed. I know I would have been.

The sole excuse for this album is the quality of the first two cuts on side 1 - You need Love and Lady.

The first is a sort of Top 40, fairly commercial song (its three minute length suggests that it was recorded with single charts in mind) But it makes 'you turn the radio up when it comes on.

I think I like it because it reminds me (especially vocally) of a group called Shanti, whose albums were, unfortunately, never released in this country. They (word indecipherable) the sounds, rather than the traditions of Indian instruments (Salud, instead of sitar, and tables and American soft-rock).

You Need Love is similar. It has a How and a feel about it. Gentle? perhaps Hackneyed? Definitely. But what the hell, I like it.

Lady is the other good track. It is one of those build up numbers starting slow, and increasing in speed and intensity. It reminds me of a couple of Uriah Heep songs that are in this vein, but we can forgive Styx for ripping the style off. If only because Heep probably got the idea from numero uno of this genre Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven.

The rest of the album is uninspired lacking even the slight hook of the two tracks mentioned above.

At first I thought my inability to get to grips with this album was because I hadn't done much writing for a while. It just sat around. I found it so easy not to listen to. Why? It's boring. Probably like this review.

* * * *

"Venus and Mars" - Wings (Capitol)

Reviewed by Richard Best.

"Venus and Mars" had its first-ever outing on my turntable just half an hour ago and here I am whacking down words about it. Incredible.

I can well remember the first time I heard Ray Stevens' "Misty" on the radio: my cars pricked up, I stopped reading what I was reading what I was reading and thought 'what a lovely, lovely song".

Conversely, I have absolutely no memories of hearing any of "V&M" on my transistor although I know it received preview upon preview on stations all over New Zealand. A forty minute blend of McCartney and top 20 countdown .....and not through bias je t'assure, I continued reading whatever I was reading.

Now I actually have the LP, my take-all-in Id tells me I've heard the ting uncountable times, right down to the melody of "Rock Show" and the two editions of "Venus and Mars" (are alright tonight)..."

Which spells out gross inattention on my part, a most absorbing book, or something else.

Right first time: the only uncommonness about Paul McCartney in 1975 is his capacity for being uncommonly boring. Personal taste accepted, boring Pop music (into which category McCartney falls) is boring by anyone's standards: "Philadelphia Freedom" is boring, "Up in a puff of smoke" is boring, so is "apple wine".

V&M is as boring as any of that little triumvirate but for quite different reasons, in fact, since it outwardly appears to deliver its fair share of good karma but by stages sounds old, uninspired and worst of all, like so much Product.

To wit, V&M certainly looks like your regular 12" LP record but a packet of powdered soup on the turntable would afford about the same (negligible)—amount of 'oomph'.

What all that unequivocally points to is a bored Paul McCartney: no more the Liverpudlian teen in the process of growing up but some citizen of the world, grown up and married - hardly unenviable qualities but on "treat her gently/ Lonely Old People", McCartney abandons all hope of enjoying his middle age and masochistically grooves on "here we sit, out of breath and nobody asked us to play."

For now though, McCartney is only thirty-ish, several million somebodies have bought this album and Venus and Mars (which is to say Paul and Linda) Are all right tonight (which is to say two wallets are refurnished).

Uncommonly boring, boring profitable, for the McCartneys - this pop music, this way of the world.

John Hanlon: Higher Trails (Family Fly 226)

Reviewed by Peter Simons.

A dream last week: I was walking through a crowded market place in a city that seemed to be Auckland, although I'd never been there. I was singing to myself and everyone I passed was singing the same song, softly to themselves. It was 'Lovely Lady' from the John Hanlon album, "Higher Trails", especially the repeated final lines, "Wo Wo, on a Saturday night/ there's nothing that you can do / that won't turn out right". I though to myself, "that must be a very popular song", and then the dream moved onto other things. What does it mean. Doctor? Was the dream doubling back on itself, the song commenting on its own apparent popularity?

Been having a lot of music dreams lately but this one's not too surprising since I've been playing the John Hanlon album pretty constantly for the past week, certainly beyond all expectations. With a cover like this one, prominently displaying John Hanlon's ugly face and even uglier armpit, surrounded by a starburst arrangement of clowns, a brass band and what appears to be the Golden Cafe table on a hungover Sunday, I'm surprised I even broke the shrink-wrap, and he started in Auckland?

Then there are the lyrics, printed on the record cover. By the time I read them I was already so taken with the natural purity of the music, that the often cloying quality of the lyrics "riding across the mountain high/ two city cowboys reaching for the sky" could only be slightly upsetting. Besides if he's writing about whom I think he's writing about the person concerned would be most likely to say "Fuck off - and come back when you can write something beside mumbo jumbo." His message, inarticulately expressed as it is, is basically erotic, but in a ham-fisted way, and if his lyrics are weak and, at times, awkward, the music is strong enough to carry him. While never dull, however, it doesn't hold my attention except in states of altered consciousness when anything sounds fascinating. My advice to this gentleman is that he goes away and does not come back (as he assures us he will) until he's learnt how to write about topics that are: (1) more relevant than his own perverted notions of sexuality; and, (2) not such a blatant compromise of integrity from his original conservationist stance

The Orchestral Tubular Bells Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Virgin V 2026

Reviewed by Kerry Doole

A basic tenet of our whole materialist/consumerist ethos would be that if a product can make money, it should be re-packaged and re-presented in as many ways as possible, so as to ensure the full exploitation of its commercial potential. The case of Pete Townshend's 'Tommy' surely illustrates this.

We are to examine such a product here today, dear consumer, It is the musical composition of, one Mike Oldfield, entitled Tubular Bells'. Commercially, this product can be considered one of the success stories of the seventies. Released in 1973, the album steadily gained support, until its link with an artistically abysmal, but financially fruitful horror movie bought it unimagined Gold Status. A total tenure of about 100 weeks on the top 20 selling albums in Britain places it on the same pedestal as the 'Dark Side of the Moon' and 'Bridge over Troubled Waters'. Quite a track record, but Virgin and/or Oldfield apparently decided more mileage was possible. Their satori/inspiration flash? Instead of a one-man multi-instrumentalist Maestro, why not introduce something with a classy title like Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a trendy arranger like David Bedford, and to ensure authenticity, Mr Oldfield on guitar. Unveil the modified commodity at a 'cultural centre' like the Royal Albert Hall, and Zap! A new product.

The merits of Tubular Bells' as a composition cannot be denied. It exudes a gentle warmth and charm that made it an ideal accompaniment to late-night Milo and cheese toast. But taking it out of its original context and subjecting it to a full orchestral onslaught has destroyed its spontaneity and elements of surprise. Why, we even miss out on Viv Stanshall's M Cing and the voice of the Piltdown Man

A case of Orcastration, peut-etre?

Mark Williams : Mark Williams

EMI HSD 1040

Reviewed by Patrick O'Dea