Word: manilow
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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...feels more polished, more heavily produced than traditional Rasta music. A guitar, a bongo, and smooth, taffy-flavored voices don't appear to be enough anymore. One introduction sounds remarkably similar to several measures on Elvis Costello's recent album. And a tuxedoed concert performer carries himself like Barry Manilow onstage. These isolated moments don't detract, however, from the music's mirthful, sensuous beauty...
Everyone knows the story--of Charlie Brown and his failures; of the passion Schroeder feels for Beethoven, only to be harassed by the love-sick Lucy (who in this production cries "Hooray for Barry Manilow" just to get a rise out of the budding pianist); of Snoopy's unending battle with the Red Baron. The small circle of friends grows up in these amusing vignettes, while an occasional moral dots the otherwise harmless script. There's not an undergraduate who in his youth didn't toss a few "good griefs" into the wind at a younger sibling...
STEVE FORBERT'S ALBUM Jack Rabbit Slim is Bruce Springsteen street music thrown into a Barry Manilow package of syrrupy cliches. Forbert has the formula, the solo instrumentals, the rough voice and the street subjects, but these components lack Springsteen's raw spontaneity and power. Where Springsteen bursts with energy and originality Forbert wallows in the listless and trite...
...SCENARIO is almost too obvious: record executives hear the energy-packed Alive on Arrivaland construct the plastic formula enabling Forbert to become the Barry Manilow of the street-punk-rocker crowd. Alive on Arrival is an uncut gem. Unfortunately the attempted refinement of Jack Rabbit Slimmarred the original stone. Maybe next time Steve Forbert can restore...