28th...Dance music for a night at the Club

You Had It Coming. Four stars.

To date, this CD from 2000 and '73s collaboration with Bogert and Appice are the only Jeff Beck I've been exposed to. That's it. 56 years old, making noise on the guitar, utilising techno and with exactly one non-instrumental track, Jeff Beck acknowledged straight-off that this CD is of interest only to "a very narrow market."

Earthquake defines the whole sound. It would seem your usual repetitive, electronic groove with canned voice, but for Jeff's loud, essentially improvised guitar. This one is like the chase theme in a Bourne-type thriller - pursuer and pursued dodging through the crowds, the breathless pause when one has seemed to give the other the slip, then Bam! they're off again.

Roy's Toy uses occasional (loud) spurts of engine noise to set off and distinguish one of the most melodically intricate of the "Club" tracks and therefore one of my favorites. It reinvents itself frequently, sustaining replay value.

More noisy guitar on Dirty Mind, which uses a woman's fast breathing as percussion (!?) Talk about gimmicks that fail. When the loop is buried and turned off, the music actually gets good.

Old blues chestnut Rollin' and Tumblin' gets a thoroughly modern, rocking treatment, guesting Imogen Heap. She's got a good voice; makes it a good song.

Things finally slow down with Nadia, in which Jeff turns the electric guitar into a world music instrument. The rendering of India into sound is exquisite considering that no traditional instruments are utilised. Standout.

We return to our great night at the Club with Loose Cannon, a grungier entry and the longest track. If you liked the earlier tunes, you'll like this entry. What more can be said?

Rosebud has an almost country-rock thing going on, but it is problematically repetitive. Nothing happens. "Oh, here's a riff. We'll use that."

Left Hook is the last of the same stuff. Wonderfully interesting guitar, so of course it's good. The fast paced fadeout if a lot of fun.

The tour de force is Blackbird/Suspension. Blackbird is a quiet, one minute duet with the same. A cherished moment whose shortness adds to its sweetness, and the simplicity of the concept adds to its elegance.

Suspension is the drifting end note. Memories fished out while it plays become extraordinarily vivid, making it one of the most haunting instrumentals I've ever heard.

Short review, I'm afraid, but the sameness is a flaw. You Had It Coming spends most of its time in one place, doing one thing. What variety there is makes one hanker for a little more. If a Club isn't handy, play it while housecleaning.

27th...Unshakeable confidence

Young Americans. Four and a half stars.

With the possible exception of an album of traditional Nigerian folk songs, I'm not sure David Bowie could have found a stranger direction to pool his musical resources in. You've got to admire him for the effort. This guy ain't black, he ain't even from America and yet he undertakes a whole record in Philadelphia Soul style.

In 1975, David was already on the road to Thin White Duke hell, but Young Americans gives indication only of his overwhelming confidence, his love of his own voice and its ability to do seemingly anything. On this record he eschews the lyric in favor of using his voice as an instrument.

The other note is that of the band: keeping Garson on piano, with Carlos Alomar (who'd become a semi-permanent band member), a young Luther Vandross guesting, John Lennon permeating the record... That's just the tip of the iceberg. Sax player is David Sanborn, a well respected session man. Look at the credentials: almost everybody is somebody.

Long and the short of it: the band is hot. On the money. It cooks.

Title track is a five minute epic, best lyric for sure. A sprawling, rapid fire narrative taking in multiple points of view, a string of American cliches, a glory in American cheapness, American culture, and so on. The delivery is awe-inspiringly fast, and if you play the song back to back with Ziggy Stardust, you would hardly believe it's the same guy.

Everything slows down for Win, morose and uplifting. Low register singing, snatches of poetry, band matching him step for step, singers complimenting without overtaking him...perfection.

Fascination is the funkiest track, putting the pace back into high gear. Luther Vandross is included here, and this is a first and last in the Bowie catalogue in as much as the backup singers lead the charge. Lyric hasn't much merit, but it's just an excuse for his voice to leap up and down the scale, sometimes belting it out, sometimes whispering. And it makes for seriously funky party music.

Pacing is great too. Right slows back down to a gorgeous simmer. The melodic hook is excellent, but the middle of the song is devoted to an improvisational give and take exchange. As a song, it's lightweight; as a piece of the album, it's absolutely necessary.

Somebody Up There Likes Me has a lengthy saxophone intro, showing off the band. This one is the real tour de force, the band pushing all the right buttons and David using the more interesting lyric as a vehicle again, shifting for every verse, sometimes every line. How he did this without pausing to gasp for breath, I don't know.

Well, that's the heart and soul of Young Americans. Across the Universe is included next. Its construction doesn't fit, thematically it doesn't fit, and the song is sung furiously, as if he was trying to hammer it into the mike. The vocal workout is in fact its only saving grace.

I have no problem with Can You Hear Me, except that it is totally forgettable. Story is one of those "come back, I'm brokenhearted" pieces. Generally speaking, that's an unusual theme for David Bowie. Vocalisation again the saving grace.

Coda is Fame. Unfortunately, everybody has heard this one to death. First No. 1 hit in America, got Lennon on backups, riff is funky as hell, lyric rips its subject up nicely. First hearing it at fourteen, I felt cool just listening. Sadly, like Zeppelin's Immigrant Song, I promptly played it to death and all I get out of it now is a gentle nostalgia. Alas....

So the last three tracks are distinctly weaker than the rest of it. Also, the lyrics aren't his best, though to be fair, that's not really their point. Want the best offerings in that department, go check out Hunky Dory or Aladdin Sane.

Great stuff most of the time though, and a superb way to kill the glam rock ghost that had pursued him all the way to Diamond Dogs.

Incidentally, Young Americans currently wins my poll for CD collection freak. Owning no soul, funk or disco CDs, there is NOTHING I can partner this CD to. It stands alone.

26th...An album of stories

Never for Ever. Four and a half stars.

This has to be the most feminine CD I've ever heard. My first Kate Bush record, and note it does not delve deepest into the female psyche (Katell Keineg wins that prize), but it has a uniquely feminine flair to it that I've never heard elsewhere...the pseudo-operatic range, the delicate arrangements....

Anyway, 1980 saw Kate Bush as a successful artist, idiosyncratic, challenging and wildly ambitious. Ambition creates magic on some of the tracks, and absolute failure elsewhere.

Babooshka leads off, a hit single and it reminds me of Joni Mitchell in its forcing the melody to adhere to the lyrics intricacies, rather than the usual way round. The chorus is surprisingly ferocious, the story fascinates and the music makes various creative accents.

It makes a bracing intro, segueing perfectly into Delius (Song of Summer), featuring bass for contrast. Referencing classical music, though Kate's imagistic lyric is hardly audible. A delicate atmosphere is crafted with her voice at an exquisite, faraway high pitch, and it is one of my favorites.

Blow Away is a failure, though I'm not sure why. Personal preference says the melody clunks and her delivery is prissy beyond endurance.

All We Ever Look For gets back on the right course. This one is magic, pure and simple. Intricate melodic interplays, her voice breathtaking and the whistling riff infectiously catchy.

The delicate structures continue on Egypt, a love letter to the same. At the two and a half minute mark it makes an exhilarating shift from whimsical to gothic. The magic is most definitely at work on this cut!

The Wedding List (lyric based on The Bride Wore Black, a film) deals with the gruesome scenario of the groom shot at his wedding and the bride out for revenge. Kate clearly doesn't mean a word of it; she sings like a teenager with an attitude problem over an upbeat melody. Take it seriously, already! Don't make pop songs out of that stuff.

Violin is much better. Nothing fancy, just a manic rock track featuring violin heavily (duh!). It's fun in a silly way. Lyric says nothing, but Kate must have had a blast. Get into it and it carries you along.

The Infant Kiss (another film reference, this time The Innocents) returns to seriousness. A governess is frightened and disconcerted by her attraction to her young male charge. The guilt, fear and confusion is plainly depicted, and Kate's spin on this story is far more subtle.

Night Scented Stock exists merely as a choral bridge between The Infant Kiss and Army Dreamers. Brilliant for that, as a song it doesn't stand on its own.

Army Dreamers is in waltz time, catching instant attention. An indirect, strangely moving account of a dead soldier's family. Told with constant slang and in a sweeter-than-thou voice, backed with male vocalists (as on Babooshka/Delius), it is another moment where ambition pays off.

It's actually only a warm-up for Breathing, Never for Ever's masterpiece. Narrated by a child in the womb breathing in nuclear fallout, it is so harrowing I can hardly stand it. A miniature song suite, including a broadcast describing the sight of an explosion. I do not know if it is a famous broadcast or not. Then there's Roy Harper in the background at the climax whilst Kate loses all coherency and the child dies (or why else would her voice cut out so abruptly?). The crowning achievement.

So despite a preoccupation with the weird and macabre, which could easily have turned more than The Wedding List into a gimmick, this album succeeds on most fronts. Kate is first and foremost a storyteller, and this set of stories is nearly first rate.