Album Review: Rod Stewart, "Time"

Rod Stewart, "Time"

Rod Stewart, 2013.

Rod Stewart’s latest album, “Time,” just came out in May. “Time” marks the return of Rod Stewart the songwriter. Of the 12 songs on the album, 11 are written by Rod. It’s the first time he’s written more than just a couple of songs on an album since 1991’s “Vagabond Heart,” which he wrote 6 songs for. Since the beginning of his career, Stewart has been a terrific interpreter of other people’s songs. In the past decade, as Rod’s songwriting muse deserted him, he has re-invented himself as an interpreter of classic songs from the Great American Songbook. Unlikely as it might have sounded at first, Stewart’s voice fit those songs very well, and his albums of those songs have sold millions of copies around the world, helping to revive his career.

Full disclosure: I really like Rod Stewart. I think he’s an amazing singer. He has a very unusual voice, but he can make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. (Exhibit A: “Reason to Believe.” Exhibit B: “I Don’t Want to Talk About It.”) I also think Rod’s much underrated as a songwriter. He has a gift in his best songs for picking out the little details that make the songs ring true. Regards of whether or not Rod actually experienced all of the events in his songs, it sure feels like he did. The songs feel true to life, and that’s no small accomplishment. Stewart’s brilliant early albums will always outshine what he’s done in the decades since the 1970’s, but he wrote some terrific songs during that decade.

The songs on “Time” might not reach the same heights as Rod’s 1970’s work, but they’re still very good songs, and it’s great that Stewart is finally writing again. The songs run the full range of the emotional spectrum, from songs like “She Makes Me Happy,” which speak of domestic bliss, to “It’s Over,” a portrait of a marriage that has fallen apart. 

“Can’t Stop Me Now” is a slice of autobiography, as Stewart sings of auditioning for record executives:

“We can’t sign you son ‘cause you don’t fit in the mold

With you hair and your nose and your clothes”

But of course, Rod takes it on the chin and keeps going, eventually finding success:

“I will climb this mountain with this God-given gift

If it’s the last thing that I do”

It’s wonderful to hear Rod Stewart singing great material again. I think there’s a real joy to the songs on “Time,” and it’s infectious.  “Beautiful Morning” and “Finest Woman” are two more upbeat songs about how wonderful life is. It wouldn’t be a Rod Stewart album without at least one song about the joys of sex, and “Sexual Religion” fits the bill nicely. Here’s how Rod describes his female partner:

“One night with you has messed up my head

The well-rehearsed tease and the things you said

The erotic suggestions and mixed metaphors

Made me want you more”

I love the line about mixed metaphors, that’s the kind of little detail that I really like in Stewart’s songwriting. The album closes with the lovely ballad “Pure Love,” an outpouring of love and affection from a father to a child. Stewart’s voice still sounds great, it still has that trademark grainy sound, but he really doesn’t sound that much different than he did on albums like “Gasoline Alley” and “Every Picture Tells a Story.” I think “Time” is a real return to form for Stewart, and hopefully he’ll continue writing. “Time” shows that his gifts are still there.

Below is a list of some of my favorite songs that Rod Stewart wrote from 1969-1983. There’s a lot of variety here, from knowingly trashy songs about one-night stands like “Stay With Me,” “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” “Tonight I’m Yours (Don’t Hurt Me)” to beautiful and emotional love songs like “Mandolin Wind,” “You’re In My Heart (The Final Acclaim)” and “Still Love You.” “I Was Only Joking” is one of my favorite Rod Stewart songs, as Rod writes about his past and his present, all with humor and humility. The chorus of the song is:

“I was only joking, my dear

Looking for a way to hide my fear

What kind of fool was I?

I could never win”

Rod Stewart is a great songwriter, and here’s some of his best work.

The Best of Rod Stewart, Songwriter: 1969-1983

Cindy’s Lament

Gasoline Alley

Every Picture Tells a Story

Maggie May

Mandolin Wind

Stay With Me

True Blue

Lost Paraguayos

Italian Girls

You Wear it Well

Three Time Loser

Still Love You

Tonight’s the Night (Gonna be Alright)

The Killing of Georgie (Part I and II)

Hot Legs

You’re in My Heart (The Final Acclaim)

I Was Only Joking

Oh God, I Wish I Was Home Tonight

Tonight I’m Yours (Don’t Hurt Me)

Young Turks

Baby Jane

What Am I Gonna Do (I’m So In Love With You)

Album Review: David Bowie "The Next Day"

Promotional poster for "The Next Day," photo by Mark Taylor.

David Bowie, 2013.

When it was announced in January that David Bowie would be releasing a new album in March, I was ecstatic. I couldn’t believe it, David Bowie was finally returning to music almost ten years after releasing his last album. I was so excited for this album to come out. I really thought Bowie was retired for good, I really feared that I’d never hear any more new music from one of my idols. And then suddenly, on Bowie’s 66^th birthday, the announcement was made: Bowie was back! It was so thrilling to have it happen that way, instead of suffering through months of rumors about purported sessions, having release dates pushed back, etc. It was great to read all the articles about Bowie in the press, and to see how excited people were about him again. 

I will freely admit that I can’t really be objective in writing about “The Next Day.” I think it’s fantastic, and I’m just so happy to have Bowie back. I can’t really compare “The Next Day” to any other Bowie album simply because its gestation and release are so different from any other Bowie album. “The Next Day” will always be different from other Bowie albums simply because it’s his “comeback” album, and because of the near-decade between “Reality” and “The Next Day.”  I will also admit that I’ve very selfishly been a little annoyed at David Bowie the last couple of years just because he’s been out of the game for so long. Because Bowie has been so prolific for so much of his career, and music seems to flow out of him so naturally, it was tough for me to accept that he might have simply packed it up and called it a day. I’ve tried to be excited about the few compilations that have come out since he stepped off the stage in 2004, like “VH1 Storytellers,” (which I reviewed here) and the belated live CD release from the wonderful “Reality” tour, but there’s nothing as exciting as a brand-new Bowie album. It will be very interesting to see what this next phase in his career brings about. Bowie has said he’s not going to tour, and he hasn’t given any interviews to promote the album. We’ll see if both those things continue in the future.  

There’s a lot of material to digest on “The Next Day,” 14 songs on the album proper, and 3 bonus tracks on the Deluxe Edition, with not a cover version in sight. There’s a lot of variety on the album, from rockers to slow ballads. Bowie’s writing muse is clearly back. 

While typical music criticism focuses a lot on the lyrics of a song, analyzing Bowie’s lyrics is always difficult, as he has for so long written in a “non-linear” fashion, making typical lyrical analysis a waste of time. It’s less about the actual meanings of the words and more about the feelings that the songs conjure up.

I do have to say, however, despite all of my praise for Bowie, that the album cover for “The Next Day” is one of the ugliest I’ve ever seen. The designers can talk all they want to about how meta it is, but to me it’s profoundly unoriginal, just a rip-off of the cover of one of Bowie’s greatest albums, “Heroes,” plus a white box, with “The Next Day” printed inside the box in a super boring font. For an artist who’s created some of the most iconic album covers ever, it’s a profound disappointment.

I’m not going to dissect every song on “The Next Day,” rather I’ll just mention some of the highlights of the album for me. The first song “The Next Day” is a really great song. It’s so fun to just hear Bowie’s terrific voice again. “The Next Day” sounds like it would fit in well on “Heathen” or “Reality.” The song is an aggressive rocker with lyrics about abusive religious figures. Bowie also uses the word “gormless” in the song, which means stupid or lacking intelligence. Who else would use “gormless” in a rock song? Probably only Elvis Costello or David Byrne.

 “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” is maybe my favorite song on the album. It plays off of the double meaning of stars, both as celestial bodies and as celebrity bodies. It harkens back to a lot of Bowie’s best work, which deals with celebrity and fame. It features a gorgeous and catchy melody. The narrator of the song has an ambivalent attitude towards the stars, singing:

“We will never be rid of these stars

But I hope they live forever”

 “Where Are We Now?” was the first song released from the album as a single in January. It’s a slow, melancholy song that references Bowie’s time spent living in Berlin in the late 1970’s. When I first heard it, I wasn’t that impressed, and I found the song too slow and rather dull. But now that I’ve heard it within the context of the full album, it’s grown on me and I like it more. 

“I’d Rather be High” is the tale of a teenage soldier who would rather be anywhere else than where he is-in combat. It shows that Bowie’s talent for writing a song as a character is still intact.

“(You Will) Set the World on Fire” is a driving rocker about a folk singing girl in Greenwich Village in the 1960’s. The lyrics reference many of the folk singers of the day, and Bowie even mentions my favorite 1960’s folk singer, Phil Ochs, as he sings,

 “Baez leaves the stage

Ochs takes notes

When the black girl and guitar

Burn together hot in rage.”

The last bonus track on the album, “I’ll Take You There,” is one of my favorite songs on the album, and one of the catchiest. It’s a fast rocker, and the lyrics feature the characters of Sophie and Lev, who wonder,

“What will be my name in the USA?

Hold my hand and I’ll take you there

Who will I become in the USA?”

We don’t really know why Sophie and Lev are trying to get to the United States, or if they make it there or not. But that’s one of Bowie’s charms; he doesn’t always spell everything out for us. He leaves a lot for us to interpret however we want to. 

“The Next Day” is a great album, brimming full of ideas from a master rock musician. Bowie has long been a superlative singer, songwriter, and performer, and on “The Next Day” he shows that he’s ready to create great songs once again. No matter what other albums come out in 2013, “The Next Day” will be a major highlight for me, simply because it’s a very welcome return to music by one of my favorite musicians.