Chances are, you’ve heard Owner of a Lonely Heart by Yes on many good taxi rides to / from the Friday night knees-up. By the same token, there’s a huge likelihood that you haven’t seen the hilarious video which sees the band members turning into lizards and snakes (you trying playing bass with no limbs). High concept video, even higher mirth value, coupled with big hair guitar and some orchestral synth stabs (c/o Trevor Horn) made this a sure-fire winner in the eighties. Does it still work now? You can be the judge of that…
A pal of mine once described ELO (or The Electric Light Orchestra if prefer) as “Beatles – The Musical’ which is pretty perfect in summary. Jeff Lynne & co created something that seems to sit somewhere between prog and pop, which of course, made them hugely popular in the seventies. Probably their best known track is the stupendously joyful Mr Blue Sky, which features everything including the kitchen sink (listen closely… the metallic pang MUST be…). Coming soon to a taxi near you…
MOR is a dodgy place to find yourself. However, occasionally, it comes up trumps with a track so great that you can even find yourself liking Cliff Richard. Yes. You heard right. Cliff, responsible for a thousand awful records (choose any of his Christmas hits), hit gold with the brimstone of this easy-on-the-ear diatribe against a woman with evil ways. Listen to this song (by watching the video below) and then be honest with yourself… there is absolutely nothing wrong with this song whatsoever. Succumb to the Devil Woman.
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday October 29th, 2007 at
12:01 pm
I’m a record collector. I collect records from all over the world. Weird and wonderful psychedelic sounds that would fry any ear lucky enough to hear ‘em. Rare and obscure records are my forte… so why do I love Phil Collins and Phillip Bailey’s Easy Lover so much? One listen, and it’s clear that this is almost as perfect (and pompous) as pop can be. Harmonies, ridiculous guitar solos, more hooks than a pirate get-together… yep, Easy Lover has it all. Watch the video, sing-along… but whatever you do, don’t act cool and pretend that you don’t like it. Give in to the majesty.
Posted by
Stuart Waterman on
Monday October 22nd, 2007 at
2:19 pm
