{"id":40077,"date":"2006-12-12T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-12T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/no-secrets\/"},"modified":"2006-12-12T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-12T00:00:00","slug":"no-secrets","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/no-secrets\/","title":{"rendered":"No Secrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/state><\/p>\n

I was nine years old when No Secrets<\/i> came out, making me an unlikely candidate to have been a fan the first time around.\u00a0 My older brothers were a different story, though, and on those occasions when little brother was allowed into their teenaged sanctum back in \u201972-\u201973, this LP was often on the turntable.\u00a0 I might not have understood what half the songs were about at that point in my life, but the sound and feel of this album \u2013 warm, honest, intimate \u2013 left a lasting impression.<\/p>\n

Of course, the cover photo also made a lasting impression on my brothers\u2026 but that\u2019s to be expected.<\/p>\n

Carly Simon had gotten her feet wet in the New York music scene in the mid-60s, but it wasn\u2019t until decade\u2019s end that an Elektra exec heard a batch of her demos and, over the objections of his own A&R staff, signed her as a solo artist.\u00a0 Her self-titled debut spawned the surprise hit \u201cThat\u2019s The Way I\u2019ve Always Heard It Should Be\u201d and was followed just eight months later by Anticipation<\/i>, whose title track she wrote while waiting for Cat Stevens to pick her up for a date.<\/p>\n

Her third album, No Secrets<\/i>, was the one that fully crystallized Simon\u2019s emerging sound — revealing, deeply personal songs brought to vivid life by her powerful vocals\u00a0— and thrust her to the forefront of the female singer-songwriter scene that had been rapidly coalescing around pioneering talents like Carole King and Joni Mitchell.<\/p>\n

The rocket engine that propelled this album into the stratosphere was the international #1 hit \u201cYou\u2019re So Vain,\u201d a brilliantly rendered portrait of an ex-lover whose charisma is matched only by his ego.\u00a0 \u201cYou had me several years ago \/ When I was still quite na\u00efve\u201d sings Carly, pushing towards the instantly memorable chorus, which features Mick Jagger — along with Warren Beatty, often hypothesized as the song\u2019s subject\u00a0— singing harmony on the classic line \u201cYou\u2019re so vain \/ You probably think this song is about you.\u201d\u00a0 <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Right Thing To Do,\u201d the album opener and another top ten hit, is among Simon\u2019s more optimistic numbers, a song about overcoming doubt and affirming the healing powers of love.\u00a0 Here and in tracks like \u201cThe Carter Family\u201d and \u201cWaited So Long,\u201d Simon personalizes her lyrics to the point where every word she sings feels autobiographical, whether it actually is or not.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t that the definition of good storytelling?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The title tune is another of Simon\u2019s very best, capturing both the perils of intimacy and the consequences of getting what you want and not liking the results.\u00a0 \u201cYou always answer my questions \/ But they don\u2019t always answer my prayers\u201d goes the key line here.\u00a0 In its own way, the cover image subtly portrays and reinforces this theme \u2013 there is a raw sensuality in the shot, yes, but also a disarming openness and vulnerability to the world\u2019s pains and joys.<\/p>\n

This distinctly female meshing of vulnerable innocence and earthy maturity has a way of making the oddest juxtapositions feel natural, as when the gently lilting childhood nostalgia ditty \u201cIt Was So Easy\u201d segues right into the steamy r&b romp \u201cNight Owl,\u201d where Carly\u2019s growling, playful lead vocals match wits with boogie-woogie piano, sassy sax and a chorus of girl-group background vocals.<\/p>\n

To put a fine point on it, there are some aspects of the tones and arrangements on this disc that feel a bit dated today, and anyone with an aversion to assertive string sections backing pop vocals is going have a problem, but such quibbles can\u2019t obscure the timeless essence of this album.\u00a0 It\u2019s a knowing, artful look at life and love through the eyes of a young woman at the vanguard of a new era, making art that asked and answered questions that were simultaneously intimate and universal.\u00a0 As a result, No Secrets<\/i> deservedly became one of the milestone discs of the singer-songwriter movement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28603,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7872],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-40077","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-carly-simon","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40077","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=40077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40077"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}