Art Garkunkel - Breakaway


From Break Out to Breakaway. I'm somewhat astonished that people feel the need to point out that the cover of Art Garfunkel's second solo album is a staged photograph. 'Cause you know, i was under the impression that that's just how he rolls and a random guy in a bar with a camera said "say deadpan," gave the polaroid to Art as a fan pic, but instead of signing it and getting back to the Art life he asked "can i use this as the cover of my next album?" 

I might have been known to apologize to the Legion of Garf a time or two, but tonight we're just gonna let him speak his mind. Wikipedia tells me this is unadulterated Soft Rock, this is his best selling album, a random dude at Allmusic implied that one Art Garfunkel vocal take is basically the same as any other, but you can ignore that because the songs and arrangements are good. I say as long as you don't sound as much like Petula Clark as Petula Clark does you're doing ok. Plus, none of the lyrics were written by James Seals, so we don't have to worry about that. That's the bar Garf, jump into it (a Pointer Sisters reference? How totally strange and out of nowhere that is...). 

Nah, this is great. The only thing i don't like about the first couple tracks is the doubled vocals. They don't sound good. I also can't neglect to mention that i hear my friend Steven Stark singing. He doesn't do Art's warbling and stuff, but the timbre and pronunciation is crazy identical. Steve Crapper plays electric guitar on the title track. I don't know if anyone told him you can call yourself whatever you want to in the album credits, or maybe they did and he replied "Nope, I'm a Crapper, born and raised, and damned proud of it!" Waters of March is quirky and out of nowhere, i love it. Yeah, for at least side A, i was right. He doesn't sound like Petula Clark or James Seals. I'm good. Quite lovely. I need to take a break to see how horribly complicated this new above-ground pool we bought will be to set up. Hopefully we'll get to Side B before tomorrow... 


... ok pool is slowly filling. Hello, Paul Simon. Morbid fact, Laurie Bird (on his left) ODed on valium in Art's apartment 4 years later. Regardless of the fact that i'm going to wash it down with an album that has a chrome plated skull on the cover, this is quite an enjoyable album. What else could you call it but Soft Rock, i guess, but in this case it's fine. Yeah, i like it. Good stuff.


Oh, wow, crazy, the actual invoice from Columbia House is inside. $8.78 back in Feb. '79. Neato.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 4 Seasons - The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette

Image
This might be my longest  album review ever. But i swear a couple times, so it's worth the read ;) How could i possibly mention Jefferson Airplane, The 4 Seasons, and Frank Zappa in the same context? Zappa said "this is rediculous" and a few years later The 4 Seasons said "you know what, Frank is right. This IS ridiculous." To which Jefferson Airplane said, "Oh. Ok. Got it." The real question is: which one is the most transgressive? Zappa said stop fighting, you look like idiots. Jefferson Airplane said i guess if love and community is a bad thing, then sure we're criminals and we'd be happy to move out into the fields and live peaceful lives without your garbage, let us go already. The 4 Seasons said hold my champagne for a moment. In 1969, The 4 Seasons released the single most ironic, acidic, extravagant, and downright befuddling album ever created, The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette. Zappa was accused of writing "shitty doo-w
Read more

Welcome to my blog, and my record collection.

This is a blog about my love of listening to albums. It started off as a nightly perusal of my dad's record collection (which sadly became mine) on my personal facebook page. Over the last two months it has become quite an enjoyable process of simply ranting about what i think is a real art form, the album. It needs a more permanent home. Some of my reviews are positive, some negative. They might not be what you expect from album reviews, but i hope you at least find them entertaining. For the most part i do very little research, and they tend to be train of thought reactions rather than calculated essays. If nothing else, know that i'm really listening to them and whether they are amazing or abysmal i want you to go listen to them too.  I'll start migrating the 60+ i've written so far over here in the next few days, and hopefully get to the point where i just start writing them here. I'd probably even take suggestions if you're just dying to know my tho
Read more

Pat Benatar - Seven The Hard Way

Image
I don't know about you, but i love Pat Benatar. Yes, that's also her debut album with the single most underrated song in the universe (My Clone Sleeps Alone) in the background, but that's just a generic non-self-titled debut album. We're jumping ahead to her 6th album, Seven The Hard Way, because that, ladies and gentle germs, is how you kalaidescope a concept. Not one, not two, not three, but 4 protien-packed layers to this metaphor. You don't really need to know the overly complicated rules of Craps to know that A) it's gambling, B) "the hard way" refers to rolling doubles, so good luck rolling two 3.5s, and C) you're going to lose, one way or another. It's a joke, but more importantly, it's Pat Benatar and the roll out is Sex As A Weapon, so the innuendo is not intended to be subtle. Wait wait wait, that's only 3, Bottle, where's 4? You're right, last but not least, side B opens with Seven Rooms of Gloom, a Holland-Dozier-Hol
Read more