Sunday, September 23, 2012

Brian Wilson - Adult/Child

Live Up to the Legend?: If “legend” means “an unreleased masterwork from the genius who brought us Pet Sounds” then no. But for Brian fanatics, Adult Child is a must-hear, even if it does chronicle the decline of what was arguably pop’s greatest talent. A sample lyric: “The cigarette butt when you throw it in the water goes ‘phhht!!’/But the trick, but the trick is you shouldn't laugh/'Cause if you start laughin’, you're just a coward/If you start laughin’, you're just a coward.” Clearly, the man had hit bottom – hard. Nearly every song reflects the sorry state in which the elder-Wilson found himself by the late-Seventies: a drug-addled, paranoid shut-in, weighing in at a none-too-svelte 300 lbs. As morbidly awful as that proposition sounds, however, Wilson’s melodic sense, arranging skills and humor had not yet totally abandoned him by 1977 – even if his choirboy voice, ravaged by a four-pack-a-day cigarette habit, had.

In some respects Brian’s “Food Album,” one song finds the recluse staring into the mirror at his blubbery naked body – in another, he yearns to drown his sorrows in a good meal, with the whole aesthetic basically encapsulated in a fantastically Moog-y rendition of the children’s song, “Shortenin’ Bread” (which, according to Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton, Brian had been performing at home for nearly a decade – often with friends like Hutton and Iggy Pop(!!) uncomfortably cajoled into singing harmony parts). Elsewhere, wanting to give their insane older brother a hand, Carl and Dennis pop in to croon a few as well, taking the leads on “It’s Over Now,” reportedly penned for Sinatra, and the bouncy “It’s Trying To Say,” respectively. Add to those a heartbreakingly sad orchestrated ballad, “Still I Dream of It,” and suspect covers of “Deep Purple” and “On Broadway,” replete with treacly Baker Street sax, and Adult Child stands as solidly B-grade Brian.

 Songs: Life Is For The Living, It's Over Now, Everybody Wants To Live, LinesOn Broadway, Games Two Can Play, It's Trying To Say (Baseball), H.E.L.P. Is On the Way, Still I Dream Of It, Shortenin’ Bread


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