The Velvet Forum

I've reviewed "blackAcetate" for "The 910" (A Beatles newsletter I put out). Thought I'd share it here. Needless to say, I love the new album!

blackAcetate: John Cale
(EMI)

John Cale began his eclectic career in 1965 as a member of The Velvet Underground. Since leaving that seminal group, he has managed to release over three dozen albums, following whatever musical muse interests him, and issuing everything from over-the-edge punk to classical piano music. Even in a career built on surprises, however, his new album ?blackAcetate? is unexpected. To begin with, it follows last year?s ?Hobosapiens,? which was Cale?s first rock album in eight years. This set of tunes is also unexpectedly strong ? not because it?s so creative (Cale has always been intensely creative), but because so many of the songs are so damn catchy. One gets the impression he woke up one morning and said: ?Well, I haven?t put out an album with a lot of hooks before. Let?s do that!? ? and then did it. You have to admire the guy, too ? ?blackAcetate? sounds anything but tired, or retro. I won?t say it sounds contemporary, because I can?t claim to know what that means anymore, but I?m willing to bet he?s still pushing the edge, just as he was 40 years ago when he added the electric violin to rock and roll?s musical vocabulary. Coming from someone who?s 63 years old, the strength of ?blackAcetate? also shows up the weaknesses in Cale?s contemporaries, who, in comparison, are a bunch of has-beens who haven?t moved a musical inch in decades. - Doug Sulpy

I love black Acetate too.
You can read my review on the website

http://www.green-river.ch

8)

He was on BBC Later last weekend and was great really rocking out, you just never know what he is going to do next..u listening Lou?

Really looking forward to seeing him in Bristol in January.

bleach wrote: you just never know what he is going to do next..u listening Lou?

In all fairness, you never know what Lou's gonna do next either. His last album was a sprawling theatrical double CD reworking the works of Edgar Allen Poe for crying out loud...

Doctor Bob, do you like the Raven? Im still undecided, I hated it when I first heard it but it grows on you a bit like other Lou monstrosities (Sally cant dance and Ecstacy in particular)

With all due respect to both Lou and you, Doctor Bob, I think it's safe to say Lou sticks pretty consistently to his own corner of the rock-and-roll idiom. "The Raven" and "Berlin" are varying themes to certain albums, but the music within is stylistically consistent.

Pernod time wrote:Doctor Bob, do you like the Raven? ... it grows on you a bit like other Lou monstrosities (Sally cant dance and Ecstacy in particular)

Pernod Time: I don't listen to the Raven very often because its not really a music album as much as it is a theatrical work/audio-book interspersed with some music as well. However I do like the handful of actual songs on it very much, including "Call on Me", "Blind Rage" and especially the wonderful "Who Am I", which is surely one of Lou's most evocative and transcendental songs of recent years.

I'm surprised you refer to "Ecstacy" as a montrosity though, I consider it to be a really excellent album, one of my many favorites!

Doctor Bob wrote:I'm surprised you refer to "Ecstacy" as a montrosity though, I consider it to be a really excellent album, one of my many favorites!

And I'd like to say the same for Sally Can't Dance. I never did understand what was supposedly so bad about that album... I love it!

dsulpy wrote:With all due respect to both Lou and you, Doctor Bob, I think it's safe to say Lou sticks pretty consistently to his own corner of the rock-and-roll idiom. "The Raven" and "Berlin" are varying themes to certain albums, but the music within is stylistically consistent.

Well its a matter of opinion but I have to disagree. Listen to a few seconds from "New York Telephone Conversation" and then listen to "The Bed", then the howling rock guitar histrionics of "Rock n Roll Animal", the doowop sensibilities of "Coney Island Baby", then a few seconds of the fourth movement of "Metal Machine Music", the jazz-infused instrumental "Chooser and the Chosen One" from the "Rock n Roll Heart" album, followed by the spoken word rock opera of "Street Hassle", then pehaps the poignant elegy to friends lost to cancer in "Magic and Loss", the beautiful theatrical numbers in "Time Rocker", and the overt free jazz of Ornette Coleman guesting on "Guilty(Song)" from "The Raven".

To my mind that represents a vast spectrum of musical styles and lyrical content, showing Lou's amazing versatility as an artist and showcasing his place as by far the greatest creative force within Rock n Roll over the last 4 decades. But that's just me....

Homme Fatale wrote:

Doctor Bob wrote:I'm surprised you refer to "Ecstacy" as a montrosity though, I consider it to be a really excellent album, one of my many favorites!

And I'd like to say the same for Sally Can't Dance. I never did understand what was supposedly so bad about that album... I love it!

Heh I was waiting for you to pick up on that one HF, I deliberately left the defense of "Sally Can't Dance" in your reliable hands