Word: conceptive
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...often criticized the philosophy behind the liberal arts ideal. It is hard to persuade students who want revolutionary change in American society that they should first immerse themselves in the cultural life of a society they believe is fundamentally corrupt. Radicals have charged that political ideas always underlay the concept of a liberal arts education. The conflict between liberal education and radical education is a question that has to be resolved before discussions of requirements can take place...
Cunningham's career has been devoted to an exploration of this "independent" potential of dance. It is a concept so radically simple that it has taken a quarter of a century for the dance world to realize that Cunningham, in the words of critio Don McDonagh, "was speaking the language of his creative time almost before the time was aware that a new choreographic language was needed." The achievement that the Cunningham company brings to Harvard is above all the divorce of dance from all elements but its own self-delighting process: motion and stillness, tension and release, weight...
...respectively, were two early road songs. In Running on Empty, his fifth and latest release, Browne presents his most extensive look yet at The Road; the album was recorded live on tour last summer, and the material deals exclusively with the traveling life of the pop star. As a concept album, it's a real triumph; as a Jackson Browne album, however, it's a dismal flop...
Running on Empty represents the concept album taken a step further--its thematic unity is bolstered by some imaginative production work. One of the cuts, for example, Danny O'Keefe's "The Road," begins in Browne's hotel room, played by a skeleton crew of two or three pieces. During a pause between the second and third choruses, crickets can be heard in the background; when the song resumes, it's the full band playing it on stage a week later. The effect of splicing the two performances together may seem overly cute, but the result is surprisingly moving...
...PROBLEM with Running on Empty stems from the almost uniformly bad original material. The clear-cut progression that Browne's writing showed on his four previous albums appears to have ended with The Pretender; he seems here to have attempted the definitive concept album at the expense of cutting a good Jackson Browne album. He doesn't do anything new on this record, and he doesn't re-do the old especially well. What makes this album especially noteworthy is, quite simply, its gimmick. It's the most comprehensive and sympathetic portrayal of life on the road that a rocker...