biffbampow: "...sure enough there's some very commercial tracks on here but as usual, ayers sabotaged it..."
- i don't believe kevin ayers wanted to produce "very commercial tracks" - and i'm not sure elton john's compositions ever surpassed gems, such as "lady samantha", "skyline pigeon" (see, or rather listen to, guy darrell's single version) and "border song", for all he gained immensely - almost immeasurably - more, later - financially.
- i think kevin ayers wanted his work to be appreciated and to make enough from it, to make a living, but "incidentally" - his work, and his self. all sides of it, weirdnesses and jokes, and both his sad and his funny serious sides. which may be asking rather a lot of the popular music business; but sometimes (some) people do get lucky, and some groups, and some singer-songwriters - and some producers - do manage it; though rather more get chewed up by the business, one way or another.
I'm divided when it comes to this album and Kevin's time with Island. Island and new manager John Reid - the guy that managed Elton John - seemed determined to try and break Kevin into a bigger league and sure enough there's some very commercial tracks on here but as usual, Ayers sabotaged it with some stuff that's bloated and almost unlistenable... the duet with Nico is downright scary and not the sort of thing one would be doing to try and gain more commercial attention! Kevin's inimitable sense of humour is thankfully present on those couple of very brief ditties, but the Dr Dream suite is overlong, self indulgent twaddle...
In some ways, almost a typical Kevin Ayers album since they mostly tended to have something ponderous and overlong in there... just this time round, I dunno... it's a bit too much. An album of two halves, the first being decent enough but sunk by side two which I find almost unlistenable.
My copy is in storage so can't check but am I right in remembering that the cover has those masked faces embossed?
again, thanks, frank, for a whole class of essential info the submitter couldn't be bothered to give, and can input some- - oft- - times, trivially easily.
(i managed to miss this lp completely, first time around - which is odd; i knew i liked his work, and should've picked up on its release even though he was no longer on harvest; i followed island's releases pretty avidly...)