I tried really hard to like this album. I really wanted to like the tour promoting it. The rest of the world, so far, is drooling over how spectacular both are, and I sit confounded. We saw the first show of the tour, about a week prior to the album's release. I had heard snippets, but not had the chance to get to know any of the songs. People I knew who had heard advance copies were praising everything from content to production, and comparing it to I'm Alive, Jackson's breathtaking album from 1993. But when I heard the song titles and some of the descriptions of the songs, I wondered what they were smoking! At least 4 titles suggested "protest songs". I put that in quotes, because it's been years since Jackson has written a good protest song along the lines of Rock Me on the Water or Before the Deluge. These titles suggested political rants more in the category of Lives in the Balance.
Here is the tracklist:
1. Time The Conqueror 2. Off Of Wonderland 3. The Drums Of War 4. The Arms Of Night 5. Where Were You 6. Going Down To Cuba 7. Giving That Heaven Away 8. Live Nude Cabaret 9. Just Say Yeah 10. Far From The Arms Of Hunger
First I will address the songs themselves.
Time the Conqueror is not a bad song. It speaks to the reality of aging, and the acceptance of the next of life's phases. Time may heal all wounds, sings Jackson, but time will steal you blind. Not terribly original, but it has a nice flow. There is a pair of girls singing a LOT of backup on this CD, and on this song song particularly, they make his singing sound flat. I don't understand why they get the exposure they get on this album. I found them very distracting, but I seem to be in the minority. They are getting all the oohs and aahs.
Off of Wonderland is next. This is my favorite song on the album. It sounds more like a Jackson Browne song than anything else on here. Wonderland was apparently the name of a street off of which Jackson lived in those early days before anyone had heard his name. It's rhythmic, catchy, charming. It isn't brilliant, but it's very likable. I don't think it's a coincidence that he has put this one out as the single, or that it's the 1st new song he offers in concert. It's classic bait and switch. There is much enthusiasm to hear more of the new stuff, then wham!
Before you know what hit you...it's Drums of War. This is a loud, yammering, preachy lot of noise. It's repetitive in the way of The Next Voice You Hear, only it's determined to MAKE YOU LISTEN! There is a spoken word bit in the middle, with a petulant tone, that's just mind numbing. It is mostly a series of essay questions one might find on a high school test in government class. I count over a dozen such questions. Here is a sample...
Who gives the orders, orders to torture?
Who gets to no bid contract the future?
Who lies, then bombs, then calls it an error?
Who makes a fortune from fighting terror?
Who is the enemy trying to crush us?
Who is the enemy of truth and justice?
Who is the enemy of peace and freedom?
Where are the courts, now when we need them?
Why is impeachment not on the table?
And he finishes that off with -
We better stop them while we are able.
Please. This is not songwriting. It's bad lecturing. No decent teacher would relentlessly pound his own ideas into his students this way. He would offer them a chance to think on their own.
Before anyone suggests that I think Jackson should continue to re-write For Everyman or Late for the Sky, I don't. But he himself writes in Off of Wonderland that he was "waiting there for Everyman".
Next up is The Arms of the Night. This song just meanders along. Nothing musically stands out about it, except there's a falsetto thing periodically, and more girl singers singing in a different key. It feels like one long sentence about bad relationships. And here he recycles the angels and flight concepts from Late for the Sky.
You've had a moment to catch your breath, and now you'll hear a blistering 9 + minute tirade about Hurricane Katrina, called Where Were You? This song is another series of clumsy essay questions, like:
Which side of the border between rich and poor?
Where were you going to evacuate to?
Assuming there was any way to
Where, if you didn't own a car?
There's more - 9 minutes more! - but I'll spare you. There is a country song titled Where Were You?, but it's about 9/11. I can't help thinking that wasn't an accident. It would be like Jackson Browne to compare a natural disaster that the US handled wrong, with terrorism. I will often agree with him that the US government is wrong, but that's pushing it. And regardless - it doesn't make good music. He should run for office if he wants to preach policy.
Next, Jackson is Going Down to Cuba. The back story here is that he was allowed to go to Cuba a few years back on a cultural visa, to play with Cuban musicians. Then, he wanted to bring the Cubans here to play with him. That was denied. 4 or 5 years later, he puts out this song about how he's going to go anyway. He sings romantically about the women with gardenias in their hair and the beautiful one who spoke to him in a hotel. He drinks lovely drinks and eats ice cream, and naively, he never once mentions the dictatorship or human rights violations so abhorrent to him anywhere else in the world. Worst of all, he put out this song with a snide little comment about "old Jesse Helms". Jesse was not a friend to many liberal thinkers, but he died 2 months before the album came out. It sounds as dated as the old Reagan bashing he did on Cocaine Rehab for 20 years after Reagan left office.
Giving That Heaven Away is a little break. It's a little song about someone he had a hot time with in a Winnebago 40 years ago. It has a lot of tumbly, clever lyrics but it's badly enunciated, and the girls in the background overwhelm it. It's still one of the best songs on the CD.
Live Nude Cabaret follows. It's a song about Jackson's visit to a strip club. It's dreamy and floaty and to tell the truth, I stop paying attention to what it's about because it's not very interesting.
Just Say Yeah is supposed to pick up where My Stunning Mystery Companion (from The Naked Ride Home, Jackson's 2002, and most recent CD of new work) left off. That was a romantic song; this is a playful song. Both are about the same woman. It's okay. Nothing stands out as memorable, but it stands head and shoulders over most of the record.
The final song on the album is called Far from the Arms of Hunger. The gist of it is more essay questions. I never thought of Jackson as a "one trick pony" but this album makes me wonder. As he dreams of the same Utopian society he gifted us with so eloquently in For Everyman, he asks:
When will we find
When will we mind
When we decide
the means to turn our world around
I haven't disliked a Jackson Browne album this much since Lives in the Balance in 1986. In the decades since, he has forced that song on concert audiences, saying that he'd been told it was more of a speech than a song, but it was a speech he was going to make anyway. Now his concerts are full of more of the same...speeches. The difference is that the reviewers of the record and concerts are all carrying on like this is new or original, encouraging rather than discouraging the preaching.
The concert I attended, the first of the tour, was my 58th Jackson Browne concert. I have some experience to draw on, regarding his shows. I left feeling disappointed and angry. He played only 20 songs, and 8 of them were off of this terrible album. I have no objection to an artist promoting his newest work, but Jackson coyly asked if we'd listen to a couple of new songs, then said he was going to play as many as he could get away with before people started leaving. People were screaming for songs he wouldn't play. When he did play an old one, the crowd went nuts, but the feeling was that he was throwing a bone to quiet them down. He also took at least a 20 minute break, and then he played only 1 encore.
I would sum up the show as "phoned in" where the old stuff was concerned. A couple of the old songs were heavily political as well (Lives in the Balance, I Am a Patriot) and some of the rest pretty obscure (Culver Moon, For Taking the Trouble.) They seemed to be songs chosen because he could turn them over to the girls singers. The new stuff was simply boring and frustrating.
Why he is now the flavor of the month is what really mystifies me. A few less than adoring reviews are starting to surface, so I know I am not alone. Maybe, like me, they were waiting and giving it a chance.
Finally, the CD packaging is ugly. It's cardboard, with 2 little tabs meant to hold the CD in place. It's a black trifold, with a black and white photo of Jackson on the front, grey-bearded, unsmiling, in black shades, looking like a unibomber mugshot. Inside the lyric booklet are more black and white photos of a surly looking Jackson and a surly looking band. I find the sound on the album muddy, and Jackson's lyrics often mumbled.
Oh well. He is 60 (or will be as of October 9) and has given us a 40 year body of work unparalleled by any other of this generation. I am grateful for that.
And his hair was perfect!
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