Cat Stevens - Teaser & The Firecat
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Free Music Notes for Teaser & The Firecat
Free Music Review: Love this CD
Hit: 5 Stars
Its a great CD. I love it. To Bad GWB and the axis of evil will not let him back into the states.Free Music Review: So good to hear Cat again
Hit: 5 Stars
Hearing Cat with new ears now..... older, wiser, more deserning and he is still wonderful.Free Music Review: Stevens teases with his songcraft and melodies
Hit: 4 Stars
Cat Stevens. Most folks remember him today for "soft rock", his devotion to the Muslim religion and little else. Which is sad. Stevens at his peak was one of the finest singer-songwriters to emerge during the 70's. He had his pretentious moments (Foreigner Suite from Foreigner) and his intellectually challenged songs as well (anything from Izitso)but most of his material has aged gracefully.Teaser along with Mona Bone Jakon, Catch Bull and Tea for the Tillerman is among his best gems. Although it misses the whismical undercurrent of Tea and Mona, Teaser more than makes up for it with sharply constructed songs. The melodies throughout are rich and when the words get in the way (as happens on a couple of tunes), the rich production and music more than make up for it.
So how's the sound quality? Quite an improvement over the previously issued edition but not a huge difference from the last couple of anthologies that were issued. The sound quality is stunning with plenty of sonic detail. The remastering by the ubiquitious and talented Ted Jensen manages to capture both the warmth and depth missing from the previous version. Jensen doesn't sacrifice anything to achieve a better sounding CD.
The packaging varies a bit as there is a limited (numbered) edition with tries to duplicate the original LP art(which will probably be around for at least a little while). Then there is the standard CD version with the booklet. It doesn't really matter which one you get as they're about the same.
This reminds us about the life Cat Stevens had before he changed his name and gave up pop music. He moved on at the right time as he was pretty much a spent force musically by the time of Buddah & The Chocolate Box. Teaser has aged well and still charms with its percolating rhythms and rolling acoustic guitar sound.
Highly recommended.
Free Music Review: A lovely but slightly over-rated album
Hit: 4 Stars
The album 'Teaser and the Firecat' is seen as the third of a melodic trio of acoustic albums by the GREAT artist Cat Stevens and that the following 'Catch Bull at Four' was a drastic change full of busy arrangements that were not previously used in Cats music.
In fact I disagree strongly and in fact believe this all started here. No busy arrangemtns here? Well there aren't strings and synths but Some songs have fifty bongos and hundreds of backing vocalists and sometimes Cat almost reaches that rough vocal style of 'Catch Bull at Four'. These aren't bad things and aren't my quips with the album. The 'sameness' in many of the songs is.
I think that 'Changes IV' is a joke on the listener. The 'REAL' reason this song is called 'IV' is is the number of times he can re-write one song on an album! 'Changes' and 'Tuesday's Dead' are almost exact, and 'Bitterblue' just takes away the backing vocal group. These songs all seem derived from the wonderful 'Peace Train'. I don't even see these three songs as amongst his best, though 'Tuesdays Dead' is growing on me, who knows I hear it at work every night. Even the directionless 'If I laugh' seems like a cop-off of 'How can I tell you?'. Also I've never dug 'The Wind' as much as everyone else seems to. Just seems like filler, though defintely not bad.
Okay I'm sorry to write such a scathing review of what is possibly his 2nd best album and definitely what is a fine album, easily worth somewhere between 3 1/2 to 4 stars. It's just this album has flaws that have NEVER been dealt with as far as I know. Everyone says it's a flawless five star masterpiece. But it features Cat Stevens near his songwritng peak and freautres many of his best songs. Almost all of these songs are catchy and easily connectable with.
Free Music Review: the irony...
Hit: 4 Stars
Morning has Broken is a wonderful song. So wonderful, it was included in the Southern Baptist hymnal. The rights to his songs go to Islamic groups, due to his conversion and devout following. If they only knew...The Satanic Verses used this to illustrate a point. The Ayatolla Khomeni proclaimed himself the Holy Iman. But according to Islam, a Holy Iman can only get his funds from pure and Islamic means. Since he used money from Cat Stevens song royalties, he was not as Holy as he wanted his people to believe. This is why Khomeni put a price on Rushdie's head and told his followers never to read the book (among other reasons.) If they only knew...
When you consider these two points, this is the most radical album released in the western hemisphere.
Musically, how can you say anything bad about Cat Stevens. If he converts to Islam, as thousands do daily, there is nothing wrong with that. It's all just so...ironic.