Saturday Night Fever (RSO 2658 123) (1977)

R.I.P. Robin Gibb

The ultimate charity shop album?

“The next time I see a clean copy of the Saturday Night Fever Soundtrack album, I’m going to buy it,” I grandly announced to my youngest son last Sunday; he and I were watching Family Guy whose music is by Walter “Fifth of Beethoven” Murphy and I was inspired. Who would have guessed that only two days later my scheme would be seen to its completion apon alighting the cafe of the Lord Whiskey Cat Sanctuary? Well, it was probably a safe bet: the album sold something like 15 million copies in its first year of release, going on to total 40 million world-wide at present.

While I already have the relevant BGs music on the rather lovely 3Lp Greatest, I have never owned SNF. I say never, in fact I did possess a 3M reel-to-reel version, taped from my friend Tim Tharp back in the day. Along with the track listing, I remember denoting myself as “producer”. I had recorded it, you see.

As it happens, the Brothers Gibb outshine nearly everything else on this double Lp, with only The Trammps’ “Disco Inferno” (all 11 mins. of it!) and “Open Sesame” by Kool & the Gang measuring up.  Though not produced or played by the band, session singer Yvonne Elliman’s “If I Can’t Have You” and “More Than a Woman” by Tavares both counts as a Bee Gees songs since they were written B., R. & M. Gibb.

That fact that I couldn’t even remember the other songs, despite playing the record a lot in 1978, goes some way to demonstrating their worth. “Boogie Shoes” falls short of KC & the Sunshine Band’s slight standards being a poppy 12-bar blues more akin to T-Rex. David Shire’s instrumental contributions pale in comparison to just about anything found here, let alone the toothsome stars of the SNF soundtrack. Their presence disrupts the album’s flow, even if they make the point that absolutely anything could “go disco”; this point is better made by the aforementioned Beethoven pastiche.

Alluded to earlier at club Thrifty Vinyl, we have a mixed result then–but at least Rick Dees’ “Disco Duck” didn’t make the final cut.

Love For Lydia (DJF 20514) (1977)

Not for me the ultra-bright, arched-back, erected nipple sexiness of Farrah Fawcett-Majors; no, in the late 1970s, my televisual crush was on Mel Martin, titular star of London Weekend Television’s Love For Lydia by H.E. Bates.  As the tragic, wilful heroine, Martin was able to inspire the hopeless sort of longing destined to end in wistful bitterness. So smitten was I that I allowed her to pull the same trick a decade or so later in the TV adaptation of Len Deighton’s Game, Set, Match trilogy and I keenly felt Ian Holm’s betrayal at her hands. Yet despite such a similar and strong emotional reaction, I didn’t realise it was one and the same actress till researching the present record.

The present record being flapper-style jazz played very straight, along with a few string-laden piano instrumentals, which I purchased this morning from the Lord Whiskey Cat Sanctuary Charity shop for a pound.

Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants (TMSP 6009) (1979)

"Oh my God! Double gatefold! It's so beautiful!"

I knew this wasn’t like a regular Stevie record, but still had high hopes when I relieved it from the original owner at the last Lyminge Garage Safari. I’d read that this early digital recording was something of a lost masterpiece, its reputation rehabilitated after an initially cool reception, and that Wonder himself rated it as some of his best work. But while it might work as soundtrack music, divorced from moving images, some weedy-ass synth sounds that wouldn’t scare a 5 year-old, unctuous muzak-y melodies and a general air of self-indulgence make this an unwelcome listen ’round these parts. Apart, that is, from “Race Babbling”, a nine-minute hidden gem of proto-house that some Balearic DJ needs to cane, if he isn’t doing so already. Spotify that one–seriously wickit!

The Last Emperor – Ryuichi Sakamoto, David Byrne and Cong Su (1987)

BYRNE IDENTIFIES, GIVES NAME TO RHETORICAL CONVERSATION DEVICE

Also Releases Soundtrack Album with Noted Chinese Composer

(New York, NY) — Talking Heads’ frontman David Byrne has today identified and named after himself that one amusing rhetorical device where, in a given conversation, you allude in a pithy or humorous way to a previously discussed and ostensibly unrelated subject or anecdote. The allusion, which may be gentle or barbed, must refer to a particular or broad point which arose much earlier in the conversation and draw a clever connection to the current subject under discussion thereby enlightening, throwing into new relief or generally adding richness to the discourse.

To deploy this device in conversation with an interlocutor will henceforth be known as “byrning” or “to byrne”, according to Gerald Garner, head of the new words department at the Oxford English Dictionary.

“This sort of thing often happens to me at parties where conversational ebb and flow can take a meanering, elliptical course,” said Byrne. ”I found that I was able to utilise the rhetorical jape with such delightful regularity when talking to friends or relatives such as Brian Eno and my mother that it deserved to be identified and named.”

“And what better name than after the man who identified it?” he added, winking rhetorically.

In related news, the New Wave vocalist was part responsible for the soundtrack to Bernardo Bertolucci’s acclaimed film The Last Emperor released today. Byrne’s contribution consisted of five short, lilting instrumentals on side two wherein the singer’s typically hiccoughing melodies are carried by an Erhu (aka Chinese violin) and are limited to the pentatonic scale, while the Sanxian (or Chinese banjo) takes the place of Tina Weymouth and strings perform the Jerry Harrison role. As of press time, there were no drums.

Paul McCartney – Give My Regards to Broad Street (EMI EL 26 0278 1) (1984)

“We All Stand Together” – Paul McCartney (1984) 7″ single

Usually cited by haters as the moment Paul went beyond the pale, the Frog Chorus tune is actually fine. There’s no shame in it.

Buying the 7″ at Smeeth bootfair when you’ve already got the picture disc is beyond the pale and a bit shameful. We’ve all got our crosses.

This and the previous two posts are the result of today’s carried-out threat to get to bootfairs by 7am. Time will tell if I can keep up the pace.

Absolute Beginners – The Musical (V2386) (1986)

The Smiths, Jesus and Mary Chain and the Absolute Beginners movies/soundtrack. With teeth bared, those were the three bones New Musical Express gnawed on at length during my initial year in the UK. But if NME found it tricky not to fall over themselves with superlatives for the two former phenoms, the latter proved somewhat more divisive. I remember a contemporary Lowry cartoon that illustrated this well. To paraphrase: Two blokes are shown discussing the movie. “I hate that Absolute Beginners.” “Yeah, me and all. Have you seen it yet?” “Nah.” “Me neither.”

Though some of it’s rotten of course, the album’s not too bad for something that is someone’s idealised version of a cool past which didn’t really exist and says more about the time it came from than the time it was supposed to be about. If you see what I mean. Then-hot Langer and Winstanley use “Jazz” string bass and vaguely Latin American percussion to colour the proceedings and add coherence to a project of diverse performers and writers. It certainly sounds more of a piece that many movie soundtracks. The Bowie title song is good in a way that has more in common with Diamond Dogs’ theatricality of than the phoned-in commercialism of Tonight.

I bought the cassette version when it came out. It had several more songs than the Lp, though I hadn’t heard it for years until I found this in Ashford.

Not to be outdone...here's my 1986 paperback movie tie-in copy of the Colin MacInnes novel--posed on the inner sleeve of the soundtrack album!

Emmanuelle Original Soundtrack – Pierre Bachelet & Herve Roy (WB K56084) (1974)

This time I made damn sure the correct record was housed within.

And what of the correct record? Well, it is not of the wah-wah guitar, funk and grind school of porn music. No. Instead it consists of basically the same insipid, faux haunting, semi-classical song excerpt played faster and slower, with and without drums, with four beat crochets, with strings, sung in English, sung in French, all called “Emmanuelle Something“. The exceptions include a very unconvincing attempt at rock & roll (“Night Club”), an appropriately skwonking saxophone song called “Rape Sequence” and “Cigarette Act”, which, although different, sounds pretty much like the “Emmanuelle” tracks. The only one of any interest is “Emmanuelle Swims” which is played on synthesisers.

Limp.

Peter Gabriel – Passion (RWLP1); V/A – Passion Sources (RWLP2) (1989)

About a month ago I found the Last Temptation of Christ double Lp soundtrack in Ashford and hadn’t got around to listening to it, something about being in the right mood. I had the right mood foisted on me when, a couple weeks later at the self-same boot fair, the various artists sister album of “traditional music, sources of inspiration and location recordings” turned up. Despite the titular exhortation to strong feeling, I found hard to get too worked up as I listened to these albums. No doubt made with enthusiastic care and genuine commitment to spreading the word, there’s something off-puttingly colonial about their very worthiness. Is it unfair that my prejudice is somehow restricting potential enjoyment? I will take time to see if I get over this, but it’s possible that these well-produced, well-played, handsome albums simply weren’t made for me, that I require my so-called world music a little more old-school rough and ready in the same way that I’d rather listen to the punk rock of the Stooges than, say, Rancid.

The Naked Civil Servant – An Evening With Quentin Crisp (DRG S2L 5188)

What? You paid five quid at a charity shop for this double Lp soundtrack to Crisp’s Off-off-Broadway monologue featuring the old dear’s musings on life, liberty and the pursuit of fabulousness on the first disc and an audience Q&A on the second? Surely, that’s a Thrifty Vinyl all-time high.

Yes. Because sometimes, darling, I’m worth it.

For your delectation, I’ve reproduced the Englishman in New York’s third-person, autobiographical liner notes, which are as amusing as any I’ve read.*

*I recommend the magnifying facility for maximum enjoyment.