Tim Buckley - Greetings From L.A.
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Free Music Notes for Greetings From L.A.
Free Music Review: GREETINGS FROM L.A. BY TIM BUCKLEY
Hit: 5 Stars
THE MUSIC IS AWESOME!!! I AM SOOOO PLEASED WITH THIS CD. I WOULD DEFINITELY RECOMMEND TO A FRIEND!!!Free Music Review: "still one of the all-time hottest party albums"
Hit: 5 Stars
"laced with funky rhythms and gut-wrenching soul, one of Buckley's finest renderings"Free Music Review: more like 4 1/2- underrated, but not quite a masterpiece
Hit: 4 Stars
Everything that's good about the album has probably been said already, so I'll just mention why I don't think it's a masterpiece. First I have to add one thing though- this album is unfairly maligned by many people as being when Tim started to "sell out." For one thing, you can tell he cares about what he's doing here just as much as he did on anything else he's done.
Oh, and I have to mention the reverse side of the "postcard"- Tim clearly had a good sense of humor too. It's very much worth owning, for the music as well as the packaging- buy it, don't burn it.
Why is it not quite a masterpiece? "Move With Me" is one of the best on the album, but what's up with the guitar? There are guitars in the intro, and then they drop out for the rest of the song for some reason. "Sweet Surrender" is, like most people say, one of his very best vocal performances, and it also has nice guitar playing, and bongo playing, but it seems to have no structure- it's like one of his more experimental songs, but with a funkier arrangement to disguise the weirdness of the chord progression. Still pretty listenable though; it's just more of an atmospheric song than a good tune. Other than that, "Greetings" could have been better if it just had shorter songs, and more songs. "Hong Kong Bar" is just too long. "Get On Top" and "Devil Eyes" are good the way they are, but they might have had a better chance at being hits if they had been released in edited single versions, a la "Light My Fire" or "Miracles." (as could "Move With Me" and "Make It Right" which are are already less than five minutes) "Nighthawkin" has interesting lyrics, but it's not great- it fits with the album, but it doesn't stand on its own as well as the rest of the tracks. Or maybe it will grow on me. With only 7 songs, this is an album, like Bowie's "Station to Station," where some individual songs seem too long, and then when it's over, it seems like the album was too short, as if they didn't have enough material so they stretched songs out to bring the running time past 30 minutes. Maybe if it had more songs, it would be more satisfying.
But once again, I'm not saying this makes the album not good- these are just the little things that add up to make it not a masterpiece. It still sounds just like music that you could imagine hearing on classic rock/oldies stations- but don't. And Tim definitely did prove, as he said in an interview (with Chrissie Hynde, back when she was a journalist), that he could sing about sex better than Mick Jagger.
Also- if you already own "Morning Glory" (as I do) it will be little bit of a letdown to have already heard almost half of the album, but, first of all, "Sweet Surrender," "Hong Kong" and "Make It Right" flow much better with the rest of the songs on "Greetings" than the they flow with the 13 other songs on disc 2 of "Morning Glory." Second of all, the rest of the album is still worth hearing- those three songs are certainly not the only good songs on it.
So, if you're a Tim Buckley fan, ignore what people say about this being a "sell-out" album, and listen to it with an open mind. And if you're not already a Tim Buckley fan, buy it, and you might become one.
Free Music Review: Buckley's "get screwed" to his label is still a fine release for fans
Hit: 4 Stars
In 1970 Tim Buckley, then known mainly as a young folk singer, released an album called STARSAILOR. It was a stunning exploration of avant-garde timbres beyond even a lot of free jazz, with Buckley's powerful voice soaring to spacy highs or dropping down to infernal lows, and it bombed horribly (recognition coming only after his death in 1975). Furious at record labels that refused to adequately promote his original stylings, Buckley recorded GREETINGS FROM L.A in 1972. This album was intended as a middle-finger to the industry, but it's surprisingly good.
The controversial element Buckley put into GREETINGS FROM L.A. is sex, and lots of it. Nearly every song here is sleaze, whether Buckley is telling of a girl he met at the "meat-rack tavern" in "Move with Me", leaving his lover for a sex fiend in "Sweet Surrender", or screaming "Beat me, whip me, spank me / Mamma, make it right again" on the album closer "Make it Right". Even though Buckley wrote songs that are just what the masses want pandered to them, the album was certainly not intended as a sell-out attempt: it was generally all too risque for 1970s radio airplay. The lyrics are mainly ridiculous, though one could try to the songs together them as some kind of concept album storyline with a sex addict's descent into madness. And the musicianship, especially Joe Falsia on guitar, is often quite lame. Nonetheless, Buckley's voice makes this an affair very much worth hearing. Though his singing is less ethereal than on STARSAILOR, it remains strong and retains its wide range and control.
If you are not familiar with Tim Buckley's work, try the excellent Rhino compilation MORNING GLORY. Those who have embarked on collecting his individual albums will find this, after STARSAILOR, one of the first to pick up.
Free Music Review: Gritty Eroticism from Buckley; a truly mesmerizing album
Hit: 4 Stars
Buckley's ventures into earthy eroticism produce some astounding songs. The mood evokes the mystery and lust surrounding early twentieth century New Orleans, centainly not the ironically titled LA of the 60s. Quite the transformation from the sincere folkie boy of "Tim Buckley"! The opening cut, "Move with Me" is wonderfully bluesy, yet production and female singers distort Buckley's animalistic sensuality. "Get on Top" has to be one of the most erotic songs of the era and certainly is more gritty and passionate than anything his more famous contemporaries would dare to do (Morrison, Joplin, Hendrix). The rest of the album, such as the cut "Nighthawkin" all relate vignettes of the dark and steamy underbelly of life in America. A good choice and a fun departure, yet it is achingly apparent that Buckley's potential to fuse the multiple musical forms he was adept in is lost forever.