Don't kick me to hard... I am new to this board...
This is such a hard decision… OOTC was such a breath of fresh air… and some of the songs hit the easy breezy sound that LB is so good at. Soul Drifter is a dream… and only days floating in a boat off the Florida Keys could compare…and it has.... and the guitar open to/and Don’t Look Down… yikes! OOTC WAS the quintessential 90’s breezy sound that he had defined for the 70’s .
It’s always the feeling he does in a song that makes the song so right. And that is what he does. I could care less about the “production” or if a metro dome ( is that what it is??? The rum is getting to me now) was used… it’s what the sound evokes!
And here comes the 2000’s with UTS… Oh my… regardless of what songs made it to which album, albeit FM or solo, they found their way when they needed to be heard. I found UTS to be the most intense, personal album – be it the lyrics or the sparse instrumentation-- or the video on the DVD – and by the way, if you didn’t look down or pull to sheet over your head out of shear compassion or sickened by the current state of the record industry or on some of the latter scenes of him talking on the phone about WHO would actually distribute to album, you’re nuts…. Well… I thought that whole documentary WAS part of the actual album… UTS was cohesive and brilliant… and showed WHO LB is/ was/ is … as should any work of art should. It is whole.
Then there is GOS…. So many songs that I absolutely love! Twist of Fate – sorry, Right Place to Fade, is just too cool… And Great Day will always remain a fabulous memory – ( side note: I got a confirmation on my first Obama gig, literally seconds before I popped in my GOS CD and Great Day blasted out of my car speakers. It was a great day!)
Anyhoo… Of course there is always “a line" and "thought cohesiveness ” that runs thru an LB album – the esoteric meaning always catches my ear, lyrically or otherwise, GOS has some… but not as much as UTS….
So the disagreement of catchy tunes that tap your toe with a grain a linear thought….. or…… the artist’s cohesive vision of pouring out their soul thru lyric and sound…… hmmmmmmmm…. He did say, ”Follow the sound”
Decisions, decisions……
But as the ole’ American Bandstand’s collective tally was… “ It had a good beat and…..”
Oooppsss… time for a refill…
