Saturday, January 29, 2005
GENUINE IMITATION LIFE: The Genuine Imitation Life Gazette, the Four Seasons' 1969 contribution to the era's concept album sweepstakes, has lurked at the back of my consciousness for a few years, since I saw the LP in the used bin at the Record Exchange. Being born after their hot streak, songs like "Dawn" and "Rag Doll" were part of the background noise growing up, so of course when I saw the name of the group attached to a song called "American Crucixion and Resurrection", I had a feeling I'd be coming back to it eventually. A few weeks ago, I found a Rhino CD reissue (which seems to be hopelessly out of print), complete with a rough approximation of the original fake newspaper liner notes, I just had to bite.
This was still the same group fronted by Frankie Valli, but the music took more chances and the lyrics were making a bid for relevance. In some places, this works very well (the divorce ballad of "Saturday's Father" is very effective), while others don't hang together quite as well. In a few songs, you can definitely hear the gears shifting constantly in an attempt at the Brian Wilson "teenage symphony" approach, or maybe it's closer to what Love pulled off on Forever Changes. While it hangs together much better than it shoud, it was really jarring when the music in "American Crucifixion" shifted into shuffle-footed Dixieland to represent the "establishment" world ("Hey boy, you're supposed to call me Mister..."). It may have seemed clever then, but 30 years down the line it sounds a bit awkward.
(Footnote: Of course, the culture's changed quite a bit, and the dividing line among young rebels isn't rock/non-rock so much as what kind of rock or pop you listen to or play. It can be very frustrating defining yourself as apart from the boomers when they've claimed so much territory for themselves. People used to wear t-shirts and ragged blue jeans as a badge of individuality, even dissent, but in an age when your mom and dad dress like that, what kind of half-assed signifier is it?)
In spite of some of the more cringeworthy moments (maybe it's not just me, since apparently the LP was released to a round of derision, or at best indifference), there's some worthwhile music inside. The best songs have the propulsive kick we've come to associate with the best pop of the era. So yeah, it's a suggested purchase if you can find the CD close to the last known list price. It's likely you'll have better luck tracking a vinyl copy at a reasonable price, which would give you the original, unaltered cover art to boot. Whether buying it as a second-hand CD is worth $40 is your call, but I think we can all agree that $100 is ridiculous by any measure.
This was still the same group fronted by Frankie Valli, but the music took more chances and the lyrics were making a bid for relevance. In some places, this works very well (the divorce ballad of "Saturday's Father" is very effective), while others don't hang together quite as well. In a few songs, you can definitely hear the gears shifting constantly in an attempt at the Brian Wilson "teenage symphony" approach, or maybe it's closer to what Love pulled off on Forever Changes. While it hangs together much better than it shoud, it was really jarring when the music in "American Crucifixion" shifted into shuffle-footed Dixieland to represent the "establishment" world ("Hey boy, you're supposed to call me Mister..."). It may have seemed clever then, but 30 years down the line it sounds a bit awkward.
(Footnote: Of course, the culture's changed quite a bit, and the dividing line among young rebels isn't rock/non-rock so much as what kind of rock or pop you listen to or play. It can be very frustrating defining yourself as apart from the boomers when they've claimed so much territory for themselves. People used to wear t-shirts and ragged blue jeans as a badge of individuality, even dissent, but in an age when your mom and dad dress like that, what kind of half-assed signifier is it?)
In spite of some of the more cringeworthy moments (maybe it's not just me, since apparently the LP was released to a round of derision, or at best indifference), there's some worthwhile music inside. The best songs have the propulsive kick we've come to associate with the best pop of the era. So yeah, it's a suggested purchase if you can find the CD close to the last known list price. It's likely you'll have better luck tracking a vinyl copy at a reasonable price, which would give you the original, unaltered cover art to boot. Whether buying it as a second-hand CD is worth $40 is your call, but I think we can all agree that $100 is ridiculous by any measure.
|| Eric 3:32 AM#
