Word: albums
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Phoebe Snow says now, but still, this was a time of awakening. At the urging of Parker, her "first boyfriend," Snow was beginning to experiment with the crystalline grace of her four-octave voice, getting a grip on her crippling shyness, actually starting to perform. She made a debut album, she had a hit, she was on her way. Then her luck faded...
That was the mid-'70s. There was music after that, but none of it was as consistent or as solid; none of it was as soulful. Now Phoebe Snow is back, with her first album in eight years, whose title, Something Real, is a cool bit of understatement. The record is so real -- so immediate -- that the feelings described in its ten songs become almost palpable. The rhythms swing easy and rock on request, but the tunes have lyrics so vivid that each becomes an epigram from a broken heart...
...music she heard, and the music Parker urged her to make, that brought her out of herself. She was making demo tapes the night she heard that Parker had ODed. But he had left her a legacy: a little self-confidence. And some hard luck. Her first album, released in 1974, is still treasured as one of the seminal singer-songwriter testaments of the decade. There were enervating legal problems over record deals. Her subsequent releases turned unfocused, uncertain. And there were personal tragedies. Snow's daughter Valerie was born with brain damage in 1975. Music was no longer...
...poor musicianship or songwriting; rather, they seem to be errors of judgment, or lapses in commitment to his ideas. Even mediocre Joe Jackson is better then most of the pop music out there, however, and the transcendent moments on Blaze of Glory--which far outnumber the lulls--make the album a worthwhile listen...
Video Sickness has its moments. Its best efforts come through in short, crisply edited clips like "Arnold's Favorite Love Songs," an advertisement for an album collection of Arnold Schwart-zenegger singing Don MacLean's "Crying" and Roy Orbison's "Pretty Woman," among others...