When I was 12 years old, my aunt gave me a copy of Big Country’s
\ndebut release
\nThe Crossing<\/i>. I can’t remember why she bought it for me, nor
\nthe reason she was so impressed with it at the time. I threw it
\ninto a corner of the room (long before I had the Pierce Memorial
\nArchives – I think it was more the Pierce Memorial Closet at that
\nage) and forgot about it after one listen.<\/p>\n
Now that I’m older and have more of an appreciation for Scottish
\nrock bands (like Del Amitri), I dug this one out of the Pierce
\nMemorial Archives (where I’m actively looking for replacement
\ncopies of two Grand Funk records) and gave it a couple spins. While
\nthis quartet had its moments, my basic opinion hasn’t changed that
\nmuch: it’s just an average record.<\/p>\n
The band, led by guitarist Stuart Adamson, supposedly had the
\ngimmick that their guitars sounded like bagpipes. Being a fan of
\nbagpipe music myself, I’d love to know what you’re supposed to be
\nsmoking to arrive at this conclusion. While the use of the E-bow,
\nthe “ultimate” electronic toy for the guitar, obviously produced
\nsome interesting sounds for Adamson and Bruce Watson, it sounds
\nnothing like a bagpipe.<\/p>\n
The big hit off
\nThe Crossing<\/i> is the leadoff track, “In A Big Country.” I
\nremember enjoying the song when I listened to it back in 1983, and
\nI still love the track. The harmonizing of the vocals is quite
\ngood, and the musicianship adds to the track. On the contrary, the
\nother single from this one, “Fields Of Fire,” has not held up well
\nto the passage of time, and sounds way too repetitive.<\/p>\n
I do remember losing interest past the two hits as a child,
\nthough after recent listens, I appreciate tracks like “1000 Stars”
\nand “Porrohman” more. I also now understand why Del Amitri’s debut
\nsounds the way it does – in fact, quite a bit like this album does.
\nThe sound of both albums seems to be a mirror of what was in vogue
\nin Scotland the first half of the ’80s.<\/p>\n
But the bulk of
\nThe Crossing<\/i> is a half-hearted stab at pop while trying to
\nmanifest their Scottish roots. And kids, I honestly don’t think you
\ncan do both at one time. When Big Country aimed for the pop
\njugular, more often than not they hit the target, if not the
\nbullseye (as in the case of “Inwards”). When they showed off a
\nlittle more of their roots, like on “Porrohman,” the results were
\nquite pleasing. The amalgam, like on “Fields Of Fire,” blows.<\/p>\n
To the long-time readers of this site, they may see this as
\nfurther proof that I am just an old pop-hating curmudgeon. I beg to
\ndiffer; I do enjoy pop, so long as it is done well. Even the
\nproduction work of Steve Lillywhite can’t turn crap into copper
\n(though God knows he’s done it enough times since then).<\/p>\n
\nThe Crossing<\/i> does have moments that are worth investing the
\ntime and effort to listen to. And, maybe, the listener who can
\nenjoy pop music more than myself for what it is will enjoy it. For
\nthe rest of us, I’d stick with the greatest hits disc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24505,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5811],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-35708","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-big-country","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35708","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=35708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/35708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35708"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=35708"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=35708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}