Gilbert O'Sullivan

Gilbert O'Sullivan - Himself

This is the North American release of Himself that added his signature song "Alone Again (Naturally)" and changed up the cover art. Now Gilbert looked like Archie Andrews (without the ginger hair and freckles) rather than a street urchin from a Charlie Chaplin movie. If you didn't like the long-haired freaky people, here was Gilbert, a dapper figure in his letter sweater looking like he was just waiting to help an old lady cross the street to add to his collection of merit badges.

This is a rather strange album. For me, the draw was "Alone Again (Naturally)" with his double-tracked vocal and Paul McCartney-infused delivery. The syrupy string arrangement hearkened back to another time, but it sure was a great song. Even now this is a piece of pop magic, and it brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye when I hear it - it makes me think about my dad. So I was more than a little curious when I got this from the bargain bin.

It's not a throwaway bubble gum album, nor is this a pop masterpiece. It's a strange experience that is at times show tunes meets a burlesque with string arrangements. Heck, he even throws in a children's choir doing the call and response on "We Will." It also feels pretty ambitious at times, and I wonder if with a different marketing angle he'd have had more in common with Harry Nilsson than he did with Engelbert Humperdinck. I know that's a bit of a reach there, but I still get a childish rush out of saying the word "Humperkink" - yeah, that's me in a nutshell.

After a couple of spins I'm getting into this more than I was the first time through. While this will always be a curious listen for me, albeit enjoyable, it's a curiosity. I'm not quite sure who the target market was for the album. It is an odd album, and that's been a big part of the charm for me.

"Houdini Said" is probably the most interesting track on the album. The first time through I was a bit perplexed, as it was a song that seemed to have everything in it ... and with each listen a little more was revealed. Without sounding too pedantic, it's like show tunes progressive rock. It's really quite good for all that.

I know I've often pissed and moaned about albums being re-sequenced and edited for North American consumption. In this case I'm pretty happy that the non-album track that turned out to be his signature song was included here. Although I will say I'm curious about the tracks that were dropped, but honestly you can't really miss what you never had.

I had hoped for more pop magic like "Alone Again," but settled for a collection of really interesting tunes that ran the gamut and sort of defied being pigeonholed. For that, it was a lot of fun.

I also got a kick out of the outro:

Ladies and Gentlemen
And those of you who've spent money
Buying me
I'd like to thank you
I'd like to thank you
Thank you sincerely

You're welcome Mr. O'Sullivan.

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continues to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner who had been with Gary from the beg...

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