Opening the mail is fun these days. The volume of unsolicited
\ndiscs has risen to the point where I’m pleasantly surprised by
\nsomething that comes across my desk just about every week. This
\nweek’s unexpected — and very guilty — pleasure is Billy Ocean’s
\nUltimate Collection<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Let me be clear about something. There are things I love in the
\nworld — my wife and kids, baseball, writing, hot fudge, the beach,
\netc. And there are things I hate in the world — lyrically
\nlightweight, musically antiseptic and over-produced top 40 pop
\nmusic.<\/p>\n
Okay, I’m sure there must be other things I hate; that just
\nhappens to be the one that comes to mind right now. So just exactly
\nwhy didn’t I hate this album?<\/p>\n
In many ways, ’80s popstar Billy Ocean represents everything I
\ndespised about much of that era’s hit music — the reliance on
\nelectronic effects over real instruments, the use of gaudy
\nproduction tricks to dress up inconsequential songs, the
\nway-over-the-top sappiness of the ballads.<\/p>\n
This disc is full of all of the above, and yet I found my head
\nbobbing along to the music more than once. Part of that is the pure
\nnostalgia effect of hearing a song like “Get Outta My Dreams, Get
\nInto My Car” (“beep, beep” go the background vocals) for the first
\ntime in 15 years. I mean (gulp), it
\nis<\/i> kinda catchy. And “Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The
\nRun)”? Maybe even more than “Jump” or “When Doves Cry” or “Like A
\nVirgin,” that song
\nis<\/i> 1984. Hearing it again is an instant flashback.<\/p>\n
A bit about Mr. Ocean, nee Lesley Sebastian Charles. Born in
\nTrinidad, Billy moved with his family to London at a young age and
\ngrew up mixing calypso music with Otis Redding and the Beatles (why
\nhe ended up looking like Billy Dee Williams, but singing more like
\nPhil Collins than any of the above, is one of life’s mysteries). It
\nwas while working the night shift at a Ford factory that he finally
\ngot his first break and began recording a string of increasingly
\nsuccessful singles.<\/p>\n
The style Ocean eventually settled on could best be described as
\nsoul music for yuppies. Smooth, clean, crisp, synthesizer-laden
\nproduction of ultralight pop songs infused with just enough rhythm
\nand soul to keep them from simply floating away. This music has
\nmore sheen and less depth than freshly waxed linoleum. And
\nyet\u2026<\/p>\n
Even “There’ll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)” and “Suddenly,” a
\npair of top 40 ballads with enough saccharin each to kill a moose,
\nhave a certain undeniable momentum to them. Ocean does have a very
\npleasant voice, and is a master at selling these songs — at a
\ncertain point while listening to this album, I began to imagine him
\nauctioning Frigidaires by the truckload somewhere north of the
\nArctic Circle.<\/p>\n
Billy Ocean’s appeal — as clearly identified right there in the
\nliner notes to this disc — is the “sheer musical exuberance” he
\nbrings to his work. I may have a hard time getting into this music,
\nbut Billy doesn’t\u2026 he is so into it he can sell the dumbest
\nlyric (“Love Zone”), the cheesiest ’80s keyboard tones (“The Colour
\nOf Love”), or the most trite arrangement (“Mystery Lady”) with the
\npurity of his enthusiasm for the song. He believes, and that makes
\nyou want to.<\/p>\n
I can’t give this a higher rating simply because I detest this
\nparticular genre so — but I can at least give Billy Ocean credit
\nfor giving these songs his all. It’s more than a lot of his popstar
\ncolleagues manage, and it stamps him as what he is — a pro, and a
\npretty damn successful one at that. Good on ya, mate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":26757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7047],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-38024","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-billy-ocean","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38024","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38024"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38024\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38024"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}