Sucking* In The Seventies

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

*actually, being rather good in the seventies.

The Pop Open Seventies Group - revealed, reviewed, reminded. You have another 24 hours to cast your votes here!

TRACK ONE: Dionne Warwick - "Move Me No Mountain": This is luscious, stringsy soul maybe just on the cusp of disco, happy to unroll itself over five well-used minutes. Would be my top vote.

TRACK TWO: The Rezillos - "I Can't Stand My Baby": Bubblicious new wave (whose hook lent a title to Gary Mulholland's book of 500 grebt post-punk singles). Like the guitar texture and the pace more than I like the tune. Fighting it out for a second place vote from me.

TRACK THREE: Gina X Performance - "Nice Mover": I love the synthwash on this and the loping rhythm but Gina X's performance and lyrics aren't really doing it for me, and are sort of downgrading it to 'curio'. But an interesting curio which might snatch second.

TRACK FOUR: Kavaret - "The Ballad Of Arivederchi": I like the lovely bits (the harmonies, the flute) and am less keen on the unlovely or rocking or goofy bits - points for trying something different and maybe, just maybe, THIS will be the second place...

The tracks live here: http://freakytrigger.co.uk/ft/2007/10/pop-open-week-11/

And here's the poll:

[Poll #1069545]

Keep on voting dudes! Next: the EIGHTIES.

Comments

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

ha, i was wondering if track 4 was FOCUS, but thought it was a bit too bonkers for them ;)

i honestly didn't know track 2 was rezillos though, they're great aren't they :)

dionne just kind of went on a bit i thought, it's not rly my favourite branch of soul music...

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

second time round, track 4 didn't seem quite so bonkers as it did on first play. Reminds me a lot of recent South American art rock stuff, e.g. Bersuit Vergabarat

[koganbot]

For a second there I forgot how I voted.

Dionne Warwick. "Singer is trying to sound like Dionne Warwick," I said to myself. Singer evidently succeeded! But I also wrote in my notes, "A Diana Ross smoothie, 'cept the singer is rougher and has far greater technique than Diana." (And obv. this was from the period when Diana was expanding her range into "style" as represented by people like Dionne.) I love this type of sound, the whole vibe, this post-Hot Buttered Soul lushness, though I should amend my statement to say that I love it when it IS Hot Buttered Soul (first and best track being Isaac Hayes extended cover of Dionne's "Walk On By") but the whole style as it gets routinized into Quiet Storm tends towards too much butter and not enough heat. This track has warmth amidst its oil but doesn't break out of its stasis (breaking out of stasis is the opposite of its intentions, I suppose), even if it is a tour de force. Got my second-place vote because...

...I know the Rezillos, and I'm astonished that I'm the only one to recognize this track. When it came out as "quirky" little new waveish subpunk there wasn't yet an overload of records in the genre, so if you cared you tended to hear everything. I remember being disappointed that it was new wave silliness rather than punk passion, but now it seems like the passion of the silliness, the off-hand comic frenzy attached to this supposedly deep emotion, fairly engaging, though I wouldn't say that I go for an album's worth of this stuff (Can't Stand The Rezillos, which I own).

Gina X. Vocals are doing Hawaiian slides, then this becomes haughty Eurodisco with a too-too bored ESL girl declaring herself a transformer; this is oh so fucking jaded and knowing - except it doesn't communicate knowledge of anything, does it? Savoir faire without savoir or faire. The adventure of transforming is pointedly not evident in the monotone vocals. But just because something is BULLSHIT doesn't mean it's not good, and this gets to me. First place.

Kavaret. As I said last week, there's nothing like pennywhistles at the start of a track to fill me with despair, but this not only surmounts that difficulty (by abandoning the whistles, thank you) it makes me forget about it entirely. Strong droney section, lots of feeling in the fun. Problem is that the eclecticism that led this to abandon the whistles also leads it to abandon the drones for something more jaunty. The track seems to be a lo-fi rip, which hurts it in comparison to numbers 1 and 3.

[koganbot]

Also, the lyrics to "Move Me No Mountain" are obviously a retort to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough," presumably with the Diana version fresh in everyone's mind, though I don't know the dates here.

[jeff-worrell.livejournal.com]

I just ordered the Dionne LP from which this track comes*. Orig release date appears to be 1975, though possibly recorded the year before.

*so you can probably guess where my 1st place vote is heading - although I want to hear them all again before finally getting off the fence

[koganbot]

So Diana's version wasn't so fresh, already being 5 years old.

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

In my mind Gina X Performance segues nicely into or from BOC's 'Roygbiv'

[greatesthit.livejournal.com]

I knew track 1 and 2 (1 from donut bitch's 1975 CDR (http://www.ilxor.com/ILX/ThreadSelectedControllerServlet?boardid=41&threadid=52593) on ilxor). Of the other two, track three was a pretty clear winner for me. Maybe if I was in a proggier mood today 4 might have nudged ahead.