The Album Review Club - Week #195 (page 1310) - A New World Record - ELO

Inflamation Nation


(That's not a band, to my knowledge, but feels like it should be)
 
threespires said:
Started writing an alternative reality where KR gets the firm hand he needs from someone legendary enough for him to actually put down his sense of grievance and hubris long enough to make fully good on his ideas. However it soon got a bit Vic and Bob, in the vein of their Slade all living in the same house sketches. So instead I'll just say..

It's important to remember the timing and context of this slbum. Post punk had gone in a variety of different directions but no one had tried what Rowland did here. To anglicise and urbanise soul in a post punk style rather than the archetypal blue eyed soul approach of yore was something quite different. I think the main issue is that there's some inherent contradictions in what Rowland was trying to achieve melding together very different sensibilities.

For example, the horn stabs at times have an almost parping quality; not because the players are bad but because of what they're being asked to do to create the overall sound.

He's also hamstrung by his own abilities versus ambition. His vocal uses a crying style of the type reminiscent of General Johnson but Johnson was using it to sound both raw and vulnerable. Roland though is going for raw and something quite different from vulnerable, but he doesn't have the level of voice to pull it off so instead just becomes more declaratory and ragged. The raggedness works for a bit but not for prolonged periods.

I think the nearest anyone has come to making 'angry' (rather than righteous or justified) soul is Curtis Mayfield and he did it in a very different way to Rowland and with all due respect to Roland he ain't Curtis Mayfield. In fact I'm fairly convinced that only one artist could have achieved what KR was trying on this record and even that's an act of faith on the basis that I think if he put his mind to it he could pretty much have fronted any band he wanted, and that would have been Otis Redding.

So how do you judge something like this? Vainglorious failure or enjoyable near miss?

Firstly credit for the idea being sufficiently visible in the music to see what he was getting at. Secondly there's plenty of moments along the way when it can stand on its own merits. Rowland is a talented songwriter in my opinion. Thirdly he might have been a bit of a dick for trying in the first place but as Roosevelt said 'the man in the arena' and all that.

So those things lift it from a 6 based soley on execution to an 8/10 boosted there by the conception and willingness to try something new which in fairness to him, knob or not, has been a hallmark of his career.
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This is a great review and kind of where I expected you to go. And I did think about this. I also thought about something else — how relieved Kevin must have been when “London Calling” came out and didn’t hit his Northern Soul idea whilst hitting nearly every other genre. Lucky boy.
 
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