4
ARTS
Thursday, October 11, 1984
The Michigan Daily
Page 6
Records
Tina Turner - Private
Danc (Capitol)
Tina Turner has deserved success for
a. long time. Members of her field, in-
cluding Rod Stewart and the Rolling
Stones, have recognized her as one of
the hardest-working, most intense per-
formers in the music business, but
curiously this has never translated into
record sales.
Now, with the release of Private
Dancer, Tina Turner has arrived. Her
twenty years in the business have paid
off. She is as hot on the charts as she is
on stage.
The sound of Private Dancer is the
sound of an excellent performer singing
material ranging from adequate to
good. The songs themselves are not
memorable. Tina's renditions of them,
however, are.
Tina Turner is possessed of a
superior interpretive ear. She knows
how songs should be done, and for-
tunately she has the equipment to sing
them the way they should be sung.
What a register! This album has a
positively dazzling array of growls,
snarls, and crystal clear high notes.
The first cut, "I Might Have Been
Queen," is a no-holds barred, spider of
a song. It is upbeat, yet with lamenting
F "Ths year's best film!" -
-Ts Liz Smith, Syndicated Columnist
"Mozart's greatest hit...
Mozart comes raucously alive as a punk rebel,
grossing out the Establishment...a grand, sprawling
entertainment'-Time
"A sumptuous musical epic...a love story, a drama of
revenge and the story of a young musical rebel felled
in his prime'-David Ansen, Newsweek
" Amadeus' is unequivocally the grandest epic ever
made about the life of a great composer...brimful of
imagination, complexity and sublime art'
-Bruce Williamson, Playboy
"(a) fullfledged screen epic, a staggering panorama
of life, love, morality and immorality...Forman
pulls performances from his actors that are nothing
short of devastating"-Merrill Shindler, Los Angeles Magazine
"..A stunning motion picture'-Bob Thomas, Associated Press
"With 'Amadeus' director Milos Forman has
created what might be one of the best movies about
music ever made...But best of all...we have here a
picture that provides sustenance, a story with
aftershocks and repercussions".
-Chris Hodenfield, Rolling Stone
...EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD IS TRUE
SAUL ZAENTZ ,, PETER SHAFFER'S AMADEUS . MILOS FORMAN
F MURRAY ABRAHAM TOM HULCE ELIZABETH BERRIDGE
SIMON CALLOW ROY DOTRICE CHRISTINE EBERSOLE JEFFREY JONES CHARLES KAY
:. MICHAEL HAUSMAN- BERTIL 0HLSSON " MIROSLAV ONDRICEK
w NEVILLE MARRINER PATRIZIA VON BRANDENSTEIN ,. TWYLA THARP
.,,32| PETER SHAFFER SAULZAENTZ tMILOS FORMAN
OTaOf PNICLR A S n [~ ~ rr , Rc'rt7nr. "+ PG PMRENT~. GUIDANCE SUUESTFD .
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NO WPLA VING
lyrics. Tina simply soars on the chorus.
This song should have been the first
single. The lyrics are, metaphorically,
the Tina Turner story - up until this
album hit the top ten.
By now most have heard "What's
Love Got To Do With It," a testimonial
to the loveless relationship. It has but
one major flaw . . . why does it use a
synthesizer sounding like a harmonica
rather than a real harmonica?
Synthesizers are easy. This song
isn't. Tina's voice isn't. Sure, a har-
monica might not have been as smooth
as the synth, but this song doesn't need
smooth.
"Show Some Respect" is a relatively
bland R&B offering. "I Can't Stand The
Rain" is a bizarre little song. Weird
percussion, punctuated by bursts of
horns and hornlike synth, over a pulse-
like bass, this is the most ambitious
song on the album, and it achieves a
limited degree of success. -"Better Be
Good To Me" features Tina asking,
demanding, and even imploring her
partner to cut the crap. I don't have
the time for your overloaded lies,
she sings, You better be good to me.
One gets the sense that there is no other
option.
"Let's Stay Together" is a well-
crafted opportunity for Tina to exercise
her full range of vocal gifts. Once
again, her performance has merits far
greater than those of the song. Next,
she brings a new, snarling element to
David Bowie's "1984". The "Savage
Joy" that Bowie detachedly sang of is
now truly savage, and savagery con-
tinues on the next cut, "Steel Claw".
Tina turns tiger, and rips out this rave-
up at a pace that makes you forget that
she is as old as your mother.
The album's title cut is also its final
cut - the worst song on the record. A
"Private Dancer" is, disappointingly a
hooker. This is a smarmy, slutty song
which pretends to have a social con-
science, but is instead merely an ex-
cuse to present a classy woman as a
plaything. It is most unfortunate that
Tina Turner did not veto this song. She
must know the difference between sexy
and sleazy and between performance
and pandering.
Perhaps this stems for a lack of
creative control on Tina's part. She was
in no position to be making demands of
her producer on this record. Next
record, she will be. It will be exciting to
see if her gifted ear can improve the
song selection process. My guess is that
it can. This record will, hopefully, be
regarded as the turning point for Tina
Turner, as her success will bring
freedom.
It should give her the legs she needs
to take control of the creative process,
Stanley H. Kaplan
The Smart
MO\VE!
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and be her own woman, rather than
someone else's Private Dancer.
-John Logie
Various Artists-Every Man
Needs a Woman (Polygram)
The hysteria about John Lennon has
scarcely died down during the last
nearly-four years since his tragic
death. This is at least partly due to the
strenuously morbid, high-visibility
presence of Yoko Ono, who has prac-
tically forged a perverse career out of
public mourning. Perhaps the major
post-tragedy tragedy has been the sub-
tle subversion of Yoko's own talents.
Here's the woman who predated the
wave yowlings of Siouxsie, Lene
Lovich, et. al. by more than a decade;
whose influence was stupidly damned
for 'suffocating' the talent of
everybody's fave Beatle; whose own
playfulness and imagination won so
much less attention than her consort
status.
Let's face it, buddy, the 1980 Double
Fantasy laid comatose on the turntable
whenever John lamely pop-dittied
about marital bliss, and jumped to gid-
dy life whenever Yoko lent her eccen-
tricity to a wave-pop format ("Kiss
Kiss," etc.) Lennon's last hurrah to the
recorded world was the wonderfully
screechy guitar for Yoko's jangling
1981 dance hit, "Walking on Thin
Ice"-and a fine if still sad way to say
goodbye that was, participation in
something so vibrantly alive and
challenging. Perhaps if Lennon had
lived on, Ono might have finally gained
solo credibility as composer/perfor-
mer. Instead, she remains largely a
novelty-a widow before anything else,
at her own insistence.
The new compilation Every Man
Needs a Woman shares, by its title, a
fair deal of the morbidity that dogged
Yoko's two post-John LPs, Season of
Glass and It's Alright. Those albums
subverted Yoko's natural accentric
bent in favor of a misguided effort at
broad appeal and eliciting sympathy,
much of which the new record likewise
suffers from. Originally conceived as a
"birthday present" to Yoko from John,
Every Man offers covers of various Ono
songs by an eclectic mixture of artists,
with varied results. The concept is
wonderful-it's about time somebody
expressed concrete interest in
Yoko-but lame sentimentality in-
trudes all to often.
The dogs can be swept aside easily
enough. Yoko could be indicted without
a fight for the English-is-definitely-my-
second-language simplicity of her
peace 'n' love-oriented lyrics, and
there's way too much of that stuff here,
reverently delivered. Particularly ex-
cruciating is the Sprit Choir's version of
"Now or Never"-if the very idea of a
children's chorus warms your heart,
OK. Otherwise, hum a UNICEF ad in-
stead. Harry Nilsson, a big friend of J
& Y's, delivers boringly literal versions
of "Silver Horse" and "Dream Love,"
and vocally belabours the agony on a
funkier "Loneliness."
More blameless but equally super-
fluous is a super-sweet "Nobody Sees
Me like You do" by country-popper
Rosanne Cash. The album's biggest
disappointment is a flac.cid "Walking
on Thin Ice" by Elvis Costello; a stun-
ningly ambiguous song reduced to
suckable cool-pop, with the TKO Horns
no substitute for Lennon's original
squawking guitar. A pass garade is
given to pop-cliche-before-he-even-
started Eddie Money, who does "I'm
Moving On" as a thundering FM rock
rave-up-nothing great, to be sure, but
at least a real demonstration of en-
thusiasm. Likewise, Roberta Flack
lends nothing beyond conventional good
taste to the raggae-flavored ballad
"Goodbye Sadness," but her
restrained, delicately harmonic inter-
pretation refuses to indulge in any un-
necessary pathos.
The real inspiration starts with.. .
John Lennon, whose cover of "Every,
Man Needs a Woman" has that slowly
4
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4
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Torch Song Trilogy
Winner of the 1982 Tony and Drama Desk Awards for Best Play, Harvey'
Fierstein's "Torch Song Trilogy" will arrive in Detroit for a week's stint at
the Fisher Theatre, October 23 through 28. A comedy-drama comprised of
three individual plays, "Torch Song" paints the world of its gay hero, Arnold
Beckoff (played by P.J. Bejamin, pictured above with Malcolm Stewart)
through seven years of laughter, tears, great lines, and general Life stuff.
Proceeds from the opening night performance will go toward support of'
AIDS research. Call the Fisher box-office for details on tickets.
4
.;
building tension and pop likeability that
trademarked the later Yoko of Double
Fantasy. Lennon'svocals are more in-
teresting than usual, and despite a con-
ventional sax-frilled arrangement this
track succeeds as unwatered Ono. The
album really works, though, in the
tracks by its least-known artists:
Alternating Boxes does a jumpy-synth-
dominated, delightful "Dogtown," and
the minimalist German band Trio (of
"Da Da Da" near-fame) lends subtlety
and joy to the affirmative "Wake Up."
These, at last, are the heirs of Yokor
Ono-experimentalists functioning
within a solid pop-rock framework.
The album closes on a grace note, as
well. Young Sean Lennon sings the
banal happy-lullaby "It's Alright," and
though the idea of having Lennon's
fatherless child sing such a hymn cour-
ts sentimental disaster, the track (the
only one on the LP produced by Yoko)
is aggressively funky. Sean's pre-
adolescent preacher-talk vocals have
an undeniable innocent zeal-one is at
the same time stirred and a little
revolted, the way you might feel wat-
ching the inspirational climaxes of
Mickey Rooney movies.
As an introduction to an underap-
preciated music icon, Every Man
Needs a Woman has its value, however
uneven the individual tracks are. Let's
hope there's a looser, wilder
sequel-one less cramped by conscious
or unconscious reverence, one with a,
little more of the craziness of Yoko
Ono's own best moments on vinyl.
-Dennis Harvey
Rickie Lee Jones-Magazine
(Warner Brothers)
On Magazine, the third full-length.
album by Rickie Lee Jones, there is a
departure from the bluesy street-style
music of her previous albums.
Side one opens with a pretty prelude
to the song "Gravity", which, once
Jones starts to sing, absolutely jumps
off the vinyl. Yes, the album was
recorded digitally, but this is brilliant
production, folks. The vocal layerings
are beautiful, especially in "Gravity"
and "It Must Be Love", which are just
wonderful to listen to.
It must be love the sailor sails
for/Must be love that drives a bottle
to the bottom of the ocean floor.
In general, the lyrics are not }as
"street-oriented" as those on her other
albums, although the characters are
just as real, with feelings almost
anyone could relate to. Some stuff gets
a little obscure and may take awhile to
understand, more so than previous
Rickie Lee Jones material. And she
shows that same "wordy" tendency
that makes one look at the lyrics and
wonder how that could be sung, but all
doubts are erased once they are
listened to.. This lady just has a way of
twisting lyrics around or crying them
out so that it matters not what she says
but how she's saying it.
There are some other pretty fantastic
noises on this album. They include jaz-
zy brass sections, and the 'incom-
parable drum work of Steve Gadd. The
stuff is not generally as moody as that
on her other albums, but it lacks any
big party numbers such as "Woody and
Dutch on the Slow Train to Peking"
from Pirates, or "Danny's All-Star
Joint", from her first album.
About three quarters through this
album is where Jones' new sound
comes through. There is an Italian
Style melody called, "Theme For the
Pope", followed by a poetry reading set
to piano entitled, "The Unsigned Pain-
ting." Something to think about,
perhaps, but a little weird-some mday
choose to remove the needle from the
record at this point.
Magazine is to be highly recommen-
ded, whether you be a long time fan of
Rickie Lee Jones or a soon-to-be con-
vert. It might be heady stuff at times,
or a little obscure, but it is definitely a
worthwhile listening experience.
-Beth Fertigl
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