The success of the Fine Young Cannibals had to be one of the
\nbiggest surprises of 1989. Roland Steele and crew were as far
\nremoved from being a rock group as the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but
\nthey hit the big time with their wonderful song “She Drives Me
\nCrazy,” and brought their album
\nThe Raw And The Cooked<\/i> into the blockbuster range.<\/p>\n
Too bad the rest of the album doesn’t live up to the hype. One
\nsong rarely can support a whole album, and this is no
\nexception.<\/p>\n
“She Drives Me Crazy,” with its synthesized drums, was a great
\nparty song – Steele’s falsetto delivery which went into a
\nfull-fledged roar was perfect for the track. Even the guitar work
\nfits the track – from the jangly jazz riffs to the crunch of the
\npower chords.<\/p>\n
Most of the rest of the album falls into a pattern where Fine
\nYoung Cannibals sounds like they’re trying to be a jazz-rock band
\nof the ’50s. “Good Thing” sounds like a throwback to the early days
\nof rock and roll, and is a semi-decent track. “Ever Fallen In Love”
\nis a better example of how Steele et al. could use this style to
\ntheir advantage.<\/p>\n
But the obvious lack of musical direction is obvious. On one
\ntrack, Steele sounds like Prince with his dick caught in a vice,
\nthe next he sounds like he wants to be Tom Jones – cheezits, make
\nup your mind! And those synthesized drums – they have
\ngot<\/i> to go.<\/p>\n
\nThe Raw And The Cooked<\/i> works best when the band tightens up
\nand dares to look at the rock side of their psyche. When they fail
\nto do so, the results are disastrous – “I’m Not The Man I Used To
\nBe” is a weak track following the two radio hits, while “Don’t Let
\nIt Get You Down” fails from the first note.<\/p>\n
Of course, Fine Young Cannibals came from the world of college
\nalternative radio, where this would have probably been considered
\ncool. In the world of pop music, however, something like this can
\nbe career suicide. (In fact, this turned out to be the band’s last
\nalbum, as Steele turned to an acting career.)<\/p>\n
Another problem is that the album has not aged very well – there
\nwas a movie I was watching recently which featured the Fine Young
\nCannibals as the “house band” – and the music seemed very out of
\nplace. Whoops – turns out they were performing tracks from this
\nalbum, meaning this is not a good sign.<\/p>\n
\nThe Raw And The Cooked<\/i> both defined and killed this band,
\nand while the hits are still great songs, it hardly sets Fine Young
\nCannibals apart from the rest of the field. This is a good reason
\nwhy some greatest hits albums are must-owns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5754],"rating":[11205],"class_list":["post-35637","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fine-young-cannibals","rating-rating-d-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35637"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35637"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}