Al Stewart - 24 Carrots
#325
by Aaron Conte
Al Stewart
24 Carrots
Genre: Singer Songwriter
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Aaron’s Rating: 3.5 out of
Highlights:
Candy Came Back
The Ringing of Bells
Constantinople
Midnight Rocks
Running Man
There was a period of time in my life when I really liked soft rock and fusion jazz; Michael McDonald, Dave Grusin, Carole King, Christopher Cross, David Benoit, Gerry Rafferty, James Taylor, England Dan and John Ford Coley, Andrew Gold, Weather Report, Steely Dan, etc.. Precise sounds and perfect notes, sweet voices comforting my adolescent anxieties.
Al Stewart was no exception. His 1980 release "24 Carrots" is a great example of good songs; meaning, this is a record by an artist who had just come off two platinum selling releases with giant hits (you know him from "Year of the Cat' and "Time Passages" respectively). You're getting the tail end here of what probably were leftovers from three years of writing some great songs, and these are similarly not to shabby even if they just aren't as catchy and memorable. 24 Carrots, I'm guessing he was feeling confident in his ability to sell at least one last gold album...but, I can't say there's much here that you're missing. If you enjoyed Al's brand of comfort troubadour songstering, you'll enjoy this record. In fact the only thing you are missing is his really very bad attempt at something new with "Mondo Sinistro". It's the only track where I found myself becoming more and more angry the longer I listened...I couldn't figure it out. What is it? What am I so angry about?? "It's these cans! He hates these cans!!" No you jerk. It's the horrible Al Stewart song blasting in your ears.
I like the color yellow, in fact it's my favorite color. When you put a nice sunflower yellow next to a naval orange and then next to a rich brown against beige, I think you come up with this album. It's a van parked by the side of the Pacific Coast highway on Sunday. Not changing the world or influencing todays youth (or the youth of 1980), but it's sure nice to look at. In fact you might draw other peoples attention to it, "hey check that out! Wicked! Let's go home and watch CHiPS!"
In fact, there's so little of note here that I went back and watched him and his band do "Time Passages" live on YouTube from 1978. What a great song. Touching, musical, walks the happy-sad line just the way you want it. I think if you have a hankering for some Al Stewart, you should just play "Time Passages" over and over again with a light sprinkling of "Year of the Cat" and move on.
He opens well as you would expect, doing what he does best. "Running Man", "Midnight Rocks", and "Constantinople" deliver that strong smell of Pierre Cardin cologne for men, pacific island interior design with some Malibu garden lighting. A good thing depending on your age, your mood and your blood alcohol level. After that you sober up with a dip in the ocean and some ceviche that doesn't sit quite well.
I will say there are a couple tunes here that sound vaguely as though Al and Bruce (Springsteen not Hornsby) met up one night on the boardwalk "down the shore".
"Candy Came Back", a solid grade of A, echos of early Huey Lewis and the News with a near perfect Clarence Clemens sax solo tacked on to the middle. I mean I had to look it up just to believe it wasn't him playing.
"The Ringing of Bells" has the same sax tone, with some Gerry Rafferty and Billy Joel thrown in for good measure. This could be the last good song Al wrote, and really, because he wrote "Time Passages", he could have just stopped there. I get visions of NYC in 1977 when I hear this song. Good vibes man and great slacks.
Ok it's a good album, but just good, and for Al Stewart I expected more. I always get my hopes up though, so I'm used to the let down. I just would rather not have to clean bong water out of my orange shag carpet, nor pick change out of the key bowl for bus fare.
https://open.spotify.com/album/2ZdGfu9ZkkWBjOJftgJDjF?si=9JMnPjBMTQG1pV5KRxqlNg
No comments:
Post a Comment