Sparks - "Big Beat" CD, Album, 1994/1976 (Island Masters)

A really good album that could have been great, if say, someone like Mick Ronson produced "Big Beat."   It's an unusual (well, they all are in a sense) Sparks album because it's very 'rawk' with a great pinch of glam in its mixture.   The driving force of the sound is Russell's vocals, the drums, and snarly guitar.  The album, recorded in 1976, has one eye looking at that time, the current CBGB's 'punk' aesthetic, and yet, still keeping the songwriting to that perfect pitch, which is consistently brilliant and unique. 

"Big Beat" as mentioned, I think Mick Ronson was planning to take over the production or at the very least be part of the band at the time.  Instead, the album is produced by Rupert Holmes with assistance from Jeffrey Lesser.  If it was another Sparks project, I could see Holmes being involved, because of his work, although Holmes has strong middle-of-the-road songs, lyrically there is something else going on in his world.  Holmes reminds me of 10cc, in that the humor can go over a lot of listeners' heads and ears, due to the pop perfection of the production/sound.   What doesn't fit with the Holmes aesthetic, is that this album is very much of a rock album, with the genius songwriting/lyrics of Ron Mael.    Ronson, in theory, can give the songs on this album a great meeting ground between glam and rock 'n roll.   Holmes I think is more comfortable in the AM radio world of easy pop. 

Beyond the weak production, this is a wonderful collection of songs, that are satirical, witty, and comes off to me as a Voltaire/Johnathan Swift sensibility in political/social humor.   One can be offended by some of the songs here, for instance, "Throw Her Away (And Get A New One)," but again it's a work of satire, and commenting on a landscape that's pretty disgusting.  On this CD release, there are two fantastic bonus cuts:  "Tearing the Place Apart" and "Gone With The Wind." It's worth to find this specific CD for those two songs.   

Morrissey & Siouxsie - "Interlude" CD single, 1994, (Parlophone)

When I heard this recording back in 1994, I didn't know the song.  I usually know all of Morrissey's cover songs, because I feel we have a common taste in music.  His obscurity is my front yard.  Nevertheless, "Interlude" was a total mystery.   Not only the source of the song, but the haunting melody and lyrics were dreamlike and didn't seem possible to exist in the waking world.  It was a decade later that I found the original recording by Timi Yuro, and once heard, I couldn't stop playing her recording.  It was the theme song to a film that I never saw, and tough for me to locate.  Yuro has numerous best of albums, but "Interlude" never seemed to be in these collections.  

I'm not a fan of Siouxsie Sioux's voice.  I just never warmed to her goth aesthetic or her band's music.  When I read in the music papers that Morrissey did a recording with her, I thought it was an odd choice for him to do such a recording.  "Interlude" is very goth in its sense of romantic misery and doom.  I immediately loved the record and Morrissey's right-handed musician (to this day) Boz Boorer did the arrangements and production. This was also the first record where I thought of Morrissey as a singer rather than a cultivated pop star.   Now, I think of him as an underrated singer.  Over the years he has gotten better and better as a vocalist.  As he aged, his voice became an instrument that can only be him.  

The original "Interlude" is a much better record, but it's also a  classic piece of song craft written by Georges Delerue.   Timi Yuro's interpretation cannot be made better, yet, Morrissey and Siouxsie do add their magic touch to the song.