You’ve got to say this much about Donnie Iris: Even when he was
\noff, he was good.<\/p>\n
Iris might be unfairly relegated to the annals of rock history
\nthese days (although Razor & Tie, to their credit, are
\nbeginning to re-release his older albums), but he showed often in
\nhis glory days that he was a pop songster of the top caliber. He
\nmight have never topped his big hit “Ah! Leah!”, but his 1983
\nrelease
\nFortune 410<\/i> showed there was still a lot to smile about in
\nhis music.<\/p>\n
Like Iris’s first album
\nBack On The Streets<\/i>, this is one that should be listened to
\nmore than once in order to get some of the nuances that one would
\nmiss on a cursory listen. While the messages are simple enough to
\nunderstand quickly and the songs are often catchy, Iris’s music
\noften takes the extra effort in order to truly appreciate what he
\nhas crafted.<\/p>\n
At some times, it seems like Iris is trying too hard to create
\nthe success he had with “Ah! Leah!”. The opening track, “Human
\nEvolution,” is somewhat cute, but it sounds like the band loses
\ncount in the rhythm twice in the song — then again, maybe that’s
\nhow it was crafted. It just doesn’t sound right. In contrast,
\n“Stagedoor Johnny” succeeds on all levels, reminding many people
\nwho might have harbored dreams of being a successful musician that
\nluck can shine on you when you least expect it. And “She’s So
\nEuropean” does capture the magic, but it almost seems like it ends
\nfar too soon.<\/p>\n
Iris and his bandmates do take some chances with different
\nrhythm patterns on
\nFortune 410<\/i>, especially on “Cry If You Want To,” a decent
\neffort that is not too challenging to listen to. “Tell Me What You
\nWant” takes the basic structure of the beat from “Human Evolution”
\nand — aah — evolves it into a catchy beat and addictive
\nmelody.<\/p>\n
But in the end, Iris tries to match up to the level of
\nsongwriting he had on earlier efforts, and he just falls short.
\nTracks like “I’m A User” (boy, was Iris psychic or what? He’s
\npretty much on the target with what would happen in the future),
\n“Somebody” and “Do You Compute?” are okay efforts — nothing
\nterrible, by any means — but they fail to hit the bullseye.<\/p>\n
Of course, this is the kind of pitfall one would expect when
\nthey hold anything else Iris does next to
\nBack On The Streets<\/i> — and taken on its own,
\nFortune 410<\/i> is still a pleasant enough album that’s worth
\nyour searching out. (I found my copy at the used record store near
\nmy house; this particular place usually has at least one of Iris’s
\nalbums or tapes in stock at all times.) Iris shows time and time
\nagain that his success was no fluke in the early ’80s, but it does
\nseem like sometimes he was trying a little too hard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24919,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5817],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-36124","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-donnie-iris","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36124","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=36124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36124"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}