The first time I ever heard the music of the BoDeans was in
\ncollege in 1989. The college I went to had its own TV station, and
\none girl who produced some of the shows used snippets of songs from
\nthe then-current release from Kurt Neumann, Sammy Llanas and crew,
\nHome<\/i>, as the intro and outro music.<\/p>\n
Since I was then considering a double-major in Radio\/TV
\nbroadcasting and journalism, I spent a lot of time by the TV
\nstation, and thus heard the music a lot. (I soon dropped the
\nRadio\/TV major because I didn’t like working on the TV side – that,
\nand one of the faculty members was a complete asshole.) But the
\nmore I heard this music, the more I was intrigued by it – to the
\npoint where I eventually bought my own copy of
\nHome<\/i>.<\/p>\n
While Neumann and Llanas weren’t big names when this record came
\nout, and this album didn’t send their stock rising through the
\nroofs, it does show how well they had refined their craft, and how
\nclose they were to being ready for the big time. (Sadly, they never
\nhave achieved superstardom; had it not been for placement of one
\nsong on
\nParty Of Five<\/i>, they still would be one of rock’s best-kept
\nsecrets.)<\/p>\n
The two songs that always will stick out in my mind are the
\nopening track, “When The Love Is Good”, and “Hand In Hand”. Both
\nsolid rockers powered by an opening guitar riff, Neumann and Llanas
\neach add their own charm to these songs with their vocals
\n(Neumann’s are the smoother vocal leads, as on “When The Love Is
\nGood”; Llanas is the huskier lead as on “Hand In Hand”). There’s a
\nreason these tracks have stuck with me for 10 years – they’re damn
\ngood songs.<\/p>\n
These, however, are not the strongest cuts on
\nHome<\/i>. You’ve got your roots-rockers that are dance-inspiring
\nlike “Good Work”, and you’ve got the songs that pull at your
\nheart-strings (though I don’t know if this was intentional) like
\n“Beautiful Rain” and “No One”.<\/p>\n
But the highlight of this album is what closes the album – the
\nlaid-back, acoustic performance of “Beaujolais,” a song that almost
\nmakes you feel like you’re spending an evening in Creole country.
\nThe gentle, quiet attack that the BoDeans take on this track make
\nit the perfect way to bring down the electric energy they charged
\nup for the album, and brings the listener back to a level of
\ntranquility. I don’t know if they could have chosen a better track
\nto close with had they tried.<\/p>\n
There are a few tracks that just don’t capture my attention like
\nthe bulk of
\nHome<\/i> – “You Don’t Get Much,” a track I know once had
\nsingle-potential to the label, is one I just can’t get into no
\nmatter how hard I try. Others, like “Worlds Away” and “Red River,”
\nare good tracks, but are nothing spectacular. Still, these minor
\npoints don’t take away from the overall power of this album.<\/p>\n
\nHome<\/i> is an album you might not know much about from a band
\nyou may not know much about. But if you want to discover more about
\nthe BoDeans than “Closer To Free,” then
\nHome<\/i> is a great place to start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27539,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5778],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-38914","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-bodeans","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38914","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=38914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38914"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}