Word: songs
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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They follow this parody with a more serious punk tune, "Don't Blame It on Love," using some fine guitar and percussion work to drive the song along. Caleb Quaye's strong lead guitar dominates both these cuts, which comically oppose John Oates' "Serious Music," a conventional rocker that ponders the durability of pop music. The song uses some creative instrumental bridges playing off a "Rhapsody in Blue" theme...
Finally, John Oates follows up with an intriguing tune called "Pleasure Beach." Starting with a quiet, slow synthesizer backing Oates' soft, relaxed voice, the song shifts into the screams of a beach crowd mixed with a driving electric guitar riff that carries a vocal part adorned with a Beach Boys, teeny bopper harmony line. It's innocent, fun rock and one of the album's best offerings...
...Along the Red Ledge, for all its innovative passages and solid instrumental work, is a puzzling piece of music. It has almost everything, from a harmless love song called "August Day," written by Sara Allen (the subject of "Sara Smile" and a constant Hall and Oates companion and contributor), to a poor attempt at a Phil Spector rocker, called "The Last Time." There's a great orchestral work in "I Don't Wanna Lose You," a fine tune which may do well as a pop single; but the range and uneveness of the album as a whole make it almost...
...begins with his older stuff, "Ziggy Stardust" and songs from that album like "Five Years," leaving on the rock riffs and self-consciously-confused lyrics. The sound quality will strike fans of the vinyl Bowie as poor; his lushly-produced effects get stripped down to what a seven-man band can handle on stage. Bowie's vocal machinations, so clever and startling out of the studio, lose some of their sparkle when forced to follow one another in sequence. The side has a nightclub feel, like a good band at Jack's going through some of Bowie's old hits...
...second side is much more pleasing. "Station to Station" starts with a synthesized spaceship zoom that will become all too familiar by the album's end. The sound, accordingly, becomes more electronic; the musicians, it seems, were chosen for their talents in that direction. But the following song, a version of "Fame," is loose, funky and better than the original, even if it does take four guys to fake "TVC-15," a companion song from the album Station to Station that has Bowie growling lyrics about his favorite android...