Kim Carnes - Voyeur

She's got Bette Davis's eyes in a jar of formaldehyde and she brings them out for parties. Real conversation starter. And that was just the warm up, ready for the main course? Trust you'll cringe. Look, if we're objectifying eyes here, then i'm gonna have to point out that all things considered, Bette Davis's eyes are not in fact much observably different from Peter Lorre's eyes. Go ahead, you know you totally want to google photos of both of them to compare. 

But that's not why we're here, we're here to hear the Kim Carnes follow up album, because i have a real fascination with the things musicians did right after they earned the ability to do whatever they actually felt like doing. Post Gadda Iron Butterfly, Freedom Suite Rascals, Genuine Imitation 4 Seasons, every Hanson album after we all fully processed the reality of Taylor as a boy, that kind of stuff. 

Hold up, hold up, i know i just made all that up as context, but there's something so familiar about the artwork/design. There's the pen and ink detail on the cover, and the kind of art deco design work. Taylor, why is the name Taylor in my brain? Ohohohoh i remember, that Duran Duran/Sex Pistols album thing. Andy Taylor, that's it. It can't be the same art designer, can it? Well i'll be damned, it is. Those are both albums designed by English designer Kosh (famous for his work with the Royal Ballet and Royal Opera House the Beatles and stuff). Small world. 

Moving along, i'd consider Kim Carnes a comprably successful songwriter. We could do a rundown of famous collaborators and whatnot, but i think we can all agree the highlight of her pre-pickled eyeball years has to be her joke single under the pseudonym Connie con Carne entitled She Dances With Meat. Bottle of Beef approved, that one. No, not kidding, that song became a Pinkard & Bowden staple. 

Voicewise, Carnes is often compared to Rod Steward, because raspy. Conceptwise, her 7th album Voyeur is all about that Noir. Critics are kind of divided, some say the previous Mistaken Identity is better, but most say Voyeur is more solid and coherent. Musically speaking it's a bizzare combination of New Wave, Synth Pop, and Hard Rock but from a strange kind of Kenny Rogers, Showtune Country style. It doesn't sound Country at all, but it sounds like a Country songwriter wrote it, if that makes any sense. No? Fair enough. Ok, it's just weird in its romanticized mundanity. The Motels get name checked quite a bit, and that's a reasonable comparison, but this isn't nearly as quirky. The Motels just feel completely 80s, while this feels more like the 80s version of the 40s/50s. But is Voyeur actually arousing? 

The sweeping ballad that is Breakin' Away From Sanity is kind of out of place even at the end of Side A, sort of exactly like Drive is on The Cars' Heartbeat City. That's the most logical comparison, to me anyway, it's the same kind of quirky Syth Rock as The Cars. This is '82 and Shake It Up was '81 (amazingly enough we'll hear that album next). And yet, there's an unmistakeable feeling like Van Halen just announced Jump as the next song, but then played The Pointer Sisters' Jump instead. It's good, but not what you were expecting. That's voyeurism for you. As an album whose concept is observing the private sexy time of other people, it's appropriately weird. Stellar album in that respect. 

I of course make all this stuff up as i go, but i'd say this is a fantastic meta-concept. It's not about you, it's about putting you in the perspective of observing others as they apparently are, not necessarily how you'd prefer to fantasize it. Songs like The Arrangement and Thrill of the Grill really highlight that disparity, pronoun confusion in the former and "buzz it boss, you don't understand" in the latter. I personally love it when the song that's sung subtley differs from the song that's written. 

The downside is that of course this isn't a mainstream album, no matter how much it wants to be. It's not really satisfying background music because it kind of demands that you feel a little awkward listening to it. The dark industrial noir-filled exterior is the fantasy, inside it's just the reality of people being people, complicated and awkward as they're wont to be. I believe it was The Doors who said "no, you're the one who's strange," and Harvey Danger (who probably doesn't drive a '55 Merc) corroborated "yeah, if you're bored then you're boring, not me. I wanted to be a wooly muffler around your naked neck, remember?" 

Well, that was fun. Check out Kim Carnes's Voyeur, and join us later when we Shake It Up.