Postby The Write Profile » 23 Mar 2005, 07:13
The relentless immaturity of this album will always bother me. In one regard, it sort of adds to its arresting nature (the crying wail in "Mother" and his urging to tell the 'children' "not to do what I have done"), but the flipside is finishing the album with the pointless music-box of
My Mummy's Dead". I guess it suits as some light relief of "God" where the pounding, overemphasised nature of that song (list songs often hammer their point more than necessary, and I don't think "God" is any different in that regard) is so exhausting. "The dream is over", is such an obvious, manipulative line. But it works.
"Working Class Hero" interests me, it sounds like a 30-year old pretending to be a 20-year old. Everything's in such black and white terms, and he plays the messiah role (even though, just two tracks pervious, he rejected it)
Y'know I guess the reasons I'm drawn to (and like) this record are the very aspects of it I can also loathe. Frightfully bemusing.
Spector's choice is so important, he gives everything such a huge (and paraodixically pared-down) sound. Sure, it's just piano and guitar, but it fills up the speakers. Wall of spareness, or something perhaps.
It's before my time but I've been told, he never came back from Karangahape Road.