Harry Nilsson was a musician’s musician. More a songwriter and
\nperformer than a ‘rock star’, he never toured, rarely performed on
\nTV, and was more often remembered for being publicly accorded the
\ntitle of The Beatles’ favorite American singer than actually
\nsinging anything. This high praise was accorded for his 1967
\nrelease
\nPandemonium Shadow Show<\/i>, his first original recording, and
\nhe continued recording through 1970 on the strength of his quirky
\nwit, one single in the hit movie Midnight Cowboy (“Everybody’s
\nTalkin’), and his magnificent three-and-a-half-octave range.<\/p>\n
1971, though, appears to have brought the decision to dabble in
\nthe mainstream, and he released his most unabashedly pop effort,
\nNilsson Schmilsson<\/i>. There’s a lot that has been written
\nabout this CD; it’s almost crushed sometimes under its own critical
\nweight. Maybe it’s time for a fresh look.<\/p>\n
First off,
\nNilsson Schmilsson<\/i> is a lousy CD in the technical sense.
\nWith no liner notes, almost unreadable back cover (which is
\nobviously just a photographic reduction of the back of the original
\nLP), and marginal production values, it should be considered a CD
\nin name only. I have checked around to the usual sources, and there
\ndoesn’t seem to be a remastered version. This is a shame, in many
\nways; Nilsson’s voice was subtle and expressive enough that this
\nCro-Magnon era CD doesn’t do justice to it. The production is, in
\nfact, so bad that I can’t actually judge a couple of tracks; “Early
\nIn The Morning” is a specific problem, as I can’t tell if the
\nhollowness is supposed to be there or if it’s just the sucky
\nrecorded-in-a-bathroom analog technology.<\/p>\n
That rant over, the rest of the songs are an interesting bunch.
\nHarry Nilsson’s influences were eclectic, to say the least; he was
\njust as likely to include Tin Pan Alley flourishes as early-70s
\npop\/rock standbys. Never quite in step with the times, he was a
\nmusical jack-of-all-trades, and it shows on
\nNilsson Schmilsson<\/i>. Sound and influences are all over the
\nmap here; he jumps from barrelhouse to R&B to Cat Stevens-like
\nsoft pop without a moment’s notice. If you can handle that, it’s
\nactually really impressive; he does all these sounds at least
\ncompetently, and some of them are downright elegant.<\/p>\n
“Without You” is one of the greatest pop songs ever written, and
\nif you only know the Mariah Carey version, shame on you. (Mariah’s
\nwasn’t bad, to be fair, but Nilsson’s blows her away.) “Coconut” is
\none of those songs like Todd Rundgren’s “Bang On The Drum”; you’ve
\nheard it, but you didn’t know a serious musician actually recorded
\nit, and it’s still pretty funny. “The Moonbeam Song” is sweet and
\nwistful, with a delicate acoustic guitar. The highlight for me,
\nhowever, was “Down”; a driving rocker with a truly great horn line,
\nthis is an undiscovered gem.<\/p>\n
However — and you knew there would be a however — there are
\nsome clunkers. Songs like “Driving Along” suffer from trite lyrics
\nand too obvious a Beatles influence. “I’ll Never Leave You” is
\nsupposed to sound rich and full; instead, it just sounds lugubrious
\nand halting, a funeral march for a love song. And while “Jump In
\nThe Fire” was a chart hit, it left me cold; what could have been a
\npassable rock song dragged on too long in pointless instrumental
\njamming.<\/p>\n
Most rock critics are like sheep; someone somewhere anointed
\nNilsson Schmilsson<\/i> as a rock classic, so everyone since then
\nhas repeated the wisdom verbatim. It might be better to accept the
\nalbum for what it is; a piece of flawed brilliance, where the
\nhighlights and lowlights combine into a mixed bag. Harry Nilsson
\nwould never be this good again; the problem remains that it’s not
\nas good as a lot of people claim it to be in the first place.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26504,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6927],"rating":[5612],"class_list":["post-37741","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-harry-nilsson","rating-rating-b-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37741","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\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37741\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37741"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}