Word: arista
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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WHICH EXPLAINS why Arista Records, with whom Reed was affiliated from 1976-80, has just released Classic Performances by Lou Reed: City Lights, an album attempting to chronicle the most underrated and, honestly, least coruscating years of Reed's career. These were the years after RCA, Reed's original and once-again label, abandoned him as a relic, a shadow of his past triumphs. He migrated to Arista and did a few years of soul-searching songstering (and drying up) before returning to RCA and getting back on track...
Franklin is restaking her claim to No. 1 on a new LP called WHO'S ZOOMIN' WHO? (Arista). And don't doubt it: record company execs and the putative music industry will do their darnedest to pass this new album off as the reincarnation of Private Dancer, 1984's comeback miracle...
...Kinks: Word of Mouth (Arista). At last, a good robust antiexercise song. In typically contrary Kinks fashion, however, Too Hot, with its sardonic image of an entire generation beefing, toning and shaping up, has a get-moving melody that is probably perfect for a workout. Head Kink Ray Davies knows how to write songs that cut several ways, including into his own heart. Missing Persons is a lovely piece of brooding melancholy that seems, almost nakedly, to be about the dissolution of his relationship with Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders. The Kinks are still one of the most fearless, feckless...
...clubs and the concerts as well. New Music, a blend of soul, rock, reggae and disco set to a synthesized, whipcrack beat, has them buying and dancing again. The robotic rhythms are not a return to the polyester fever of disco, however. "Disco's out," says Arista Records President Clive Davis, "but dancing...
Other record companies are watching the experiment, but some are skeptical. Says Dennis Fine, vice president of Arista Records: "I collected 45s, and I would hate to see flip sides disappear." To aficionados like Fine, a one-sided single would be as disconcerting as an economy version of Cracker Jack with no prize inside...