ROD STEWART - “Sailing”
Fads come and go in the world of business: a recurrent buzzword right now is ’simplicity’ - boil that report down to a sheet of A4, find the “nugget” in that presentation, apply the ‘elevator test’: if you can’t summarise an idea in 30 seconds, it’s worthless. The tone is a weird combination of zen and macho.
I’m all in favour of cutting out waffle but not when nuance gets thrown out too. The simple truth about simplicity is that most of the ideas that pass the elevator test are banal and useless: it’s the implications of an idea that are often the interesting bit, and they’re what gets lost. And I’d say the same of this record: Stewart seems to be trying to create something that’s expressing yearning in as straightforward and widescreen a way as possible, but all subtlety’s been boiled away and we’re left with a great voice being put to dreary use.
You might disagree, of course - “Sailing” is slow and doesn’t develop much but at least it’s not bombastic, and there’s no sense that Stewart’s a phoney or the sentiment untrue - it’s just too blankly expressed to matter to me. But whether you like “Sailing” or not it’s worth considering how rock got to this point. Other styles of music, after all, didn’t develop anthems: music hall had singalongs but nothing this slow and hymnal, gospel and soul demanded participation from audiences sometimes but not (it seems to me) this kind of mass assent. “Sailing” is a record by a credible, respected artist which has less energy and spark than the grimly cynical Rollers.
Of course it’s a simple function of audience size - if you can get that many people into one place to hear you, then it becomes a lot more tempting to produce music which will create the kind of mass communal experience “Sailing” does - no coincidence that Rod was a big football fan, or that “Sailing” had a second life on the terraces. (This is why I’m wary of complaints about artists ruining their sound to find mass appeal - what if it’s not the numbers of people listening in total which damages the music, just the number doing it in one place?)
It’s also worth asking why a song striking this particular note was so successful: what, if anything, was there in the cultural atmosphere that made Rod’s simple longing for home so effective? I do actually remember this song - and I was 2, so that’s how ubiquitous and user-friendly it was! - but I didn’t know the chords it was striking, so I leave that question up to you. 3
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rosie on April 10th, 2008
Bananarama and the Fun Boy Three (or vice versa)
Eurythmics and Aretha Franklin
mike on April 10th, 2008
Also in support of #26: with “Sailing” we were more or less at an equal time distance from “You Wear It Well” (August 1972) and “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy?” (November 1978), and in some ways this record contains lingering echoes of the old Rod and ominous foreshadows of the new Rod.
Mark G on April 10th, 2008
re #40, Helen O’Hara was never ‘involved’ w/ KRowland. He was making a story to make it all look good. i.e. lying.
Waldo on April 10th, 2008
Bunny warning for Mike!!
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on April 10th, 2008
Guns n’Roses!!! <— formed out of LA Guns and Hollywood Rose
(thx to pastels_badge on lj)
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on April 10th, 2008
haha google “recorded such solo hits as “Snake In The Grass” and “Bam Bam”" to discover pliers’s solo career — one sentence, many sites! (but the much-cop-ed-and-pasted phrase doesn’t confirm if he was just called pliers)
FT's Tim on April 10th, 2008
Pliers definitely had a solo career as Pliers, though not a very long one as far as I know. I always assumed his name was reference to the excellent Pinchers, who pre-dated him a bit.
Pliers’s brother was Spanner Banner, who also collaborated with Chaka Demus.
FT's Tim on April 10th, 2008
(These are all just names for individual blokes though, and as such no more relevant to the conversation than Elton John & George Michael.)
FT's Tim on April 10th, 2008
Mark G (#53): are you sure that’s true?
Chris Brown on April 10th, 2008
Do Edie Brickell And The New Bohemians count?
a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit on April 10th, 2008
well as i phrased the question [individual] and [the band names] clearly does count, just not in a terribly interesting way — i just think there’s something a bit amazing that this strategy of self-announcement is so unusual
haha deep purple and the london symphony orchestra WINNAH
a logged out p^nk s lord sukråt wötsit on April 10th, 2008
sorry chris that sounded way ruder than i meant it to! am clearly obsessed by something i am not articulating or communicating (as per usual)
Chris Brown on April 10th, 2008
I suggested them rather than, say Dennis Wilson And Rumbo because I thought I remembered hearing somewhere that the New Bohemians were already an extant act before she joined. But I may have misremembered that. I think the same might go for Billy J Kramer And The Dakotas, including the bit about my possibly having misremembered it.
I realise that a pair of group names together is more interesting though. Come to think of it, didn’t Motorhead and Girlschool call themselves Headgirl anyway?
FT's Lena on April 10th, 2008
It’s odd but I don’t remember this song at all, even though it was a big hit on both sides of the Atlantic - either I didn’t hear it much or it didn’t grab me. Canada wasn’t in Vietnam so the sentiment wasn’t there to be appealed to, I guess. And the oldies show sticks to his early 70s songs, exclusively. Otherwise, he recorded with Glass Tiger and did another song (”Rhythm of My Heart”) which was written by a Canadian, so those tend to get airplay instead, as they help stations meet the CanCon quota…
Does Cliff Richard and The Shadows count?
crag on April 11th, 2008
Rod Stewart was a great singer- his late 60’s/early 70’s work makes that clear. Brilliant as these early tracks were, however, its obvious that these performances are precisely that -performances. Musically speaking Rod was a great actor- able to convincingly convey warmth and sincerity thru the natural vocal talent he’d been blessed with. One never gets the impression that Rod was genuinely spilling his guts out on record in a Plastic Ono Band stylee. Rather you feel that if he could have been as sucessful a footballer or perhaps even gravedigger as he was a singer he probably would’nt have minded, content to keep his singing for drunken performances down the pub for his mates.Any urgent ‘need’ to express himself musically is never evident. As such the emotions one hears on “Angel”, “Mandolin Wind” etc etc are probably no more genuine than those displayed “Sailing”.
The quality of his vocal work, however, combined with how well it all fitted with the pleasing myth/legend of ‘Rod the loveable romantic rogue’ meant that during the career peak of “Every Picture”/”Dull Moment” this didn’t matter and his 2 previous charttoppers are IMO amongst the finest #1s of the decade.
By 1975 ,though, with no real incentive either musically or financially to carry on, the only emotion he was able or perhaps willing to now project was that of cloying over-sincerity as shown by the dreary uninterested crooning heard here.
This, combined with the ‘message’ he was sending out to his audience changing from inclusive(”i’m a just an ordinary working class lad like you!Share in my sucess!”) to exclusive(”i might just be an ordinary working class lad - but i’m better than YOU will ever be and dont forget it!’-similar to the transformation undergone by Robbie Williams 2 decades later post”Angels”) all added up to a lousy record and the start of one of the sorriest falls from grace in rock history.
Erithian on April 11th, 2008
I disagree, I don’t think there was a notable drop in quality until a couple of years after this. 1976 saw “The Killing of Georgie”, the song he says he’s most proud of and rightly so, and “Tonight’s the Night” which might have fed on his rock-royalty persona but was a damn good song. Even the controversial number one in ’77 was a fine record IMHO. The shark-jump came a year or so later…
Marcello Carlin on April 11th, 2008
BUNNY BOILERS AHOY!!!
Actually the “shark jump” to which Erithian refers is, perversely but predictably, my favourite of Rod’s many number ones…
Tom on April 11th, 2008
That’s enough Rod number ones talk - long-eared Ed.
Billy Smart on April 11th, 2008
Mention of ‘Tonight’s The Night’ brings back the unwelcome memory of ITV’s 1998 ‘An Audience with Rod Stewart’ and his performance of the song as a duet with Emma Bunton - stop leering, grandad!
Mention of ‘The Killing of Georgie’ brings back the ludicrous memory of a Rod documentary where he’s being being filmed on a yacht, wearing a captain’s cap, tipsy, and surrounded by a lot of equally silly people, reminiscing about how “brave” he’d been to release it.
It’s funny how with Elton John, I always think “Hurray! Good old Elton! What a twit!”, but with Rod Stewart I always just think “Oh, what a TWIT!” in an exasperated way.
crag on April 11th, 2008
I’d agree that “Georgie” is a good record and is certainly the last time Rod sounded even vaguely committed to his material IMO but I still dont think it compares to his early 70’s work in quality and view it as a blip in the downward spiral. “Sailing” is definitely where the rot began to set in.
FT's pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør on April 11th, 2008
To up the disappointing controversy level on this thread, I am going to propose that there comes a time (for popular commnentators as for all humanity) when the justified cry “stop leering, grandad!” suddenly and unaccountably mutates into “hurrah that leering, fellow grandad, go not quiet into that bleak night etc” (adapt phrasing for gender and/or sexuality obv)
translation: i no longer find what once appalled me abt r.stewart quite so appalling
FT's Tom on April 11th, 2008
This was the reasoning behind GRINDERMAN doing so well on critics’ lists I believe, though obviously the crits prefer Nick Cave’s play-acting the old goat to the real thing represented by Rod the Dirty Old Sod.
FT's Matthew H on April 11th, 2008
Well, Cave can voice it with a bit of wit and some winning sleaze - as well as knowing how it looks, it seems to me. Rod just thinks he’s “still got it”.
crag on April 11th, 2008
I agree w/ you on the “grandad” front, pˆnk s lord sükråt cunctør. When you’re 21 and see a guy in his late 50s cavorting w/ some nubile young lady you think its the very definition of wrong. When you see the same thing when you’re in your mid-30s you think “Yes! There is hope for the future after all!”
Marcello Carlin on April 11th, 2008
No, I just think of Gary Glitter.
Erithian on April 11th, 2008
MC/Tom (#67-68) – did I actually say that the shark-jump came with the number one in question? I think it was round about the time he rhymed “Buenos Aires” with “what the fare is”!
crag on April 11th, 2008
By “young lady” i meant “girl in her 20’s” not “school girl”…
LondonLee on April 11th, 2008
I can’t believe you all like ‘Tonight’s The Night’ - “Loosen up that pretty French gown” “Spread your wings and let me come inside” and all that is like bad soft porn. You want to rush in to the song and tell the poor virgin girl to get the hell out of there.
Teddy Pendergrass could probably get away with it but Rod just sounds like a nasty old lech.
Marcello Carlin on April 11th, 2008
Not all of us, Lee.
SteveM on April 11th, 2008
Rod has obviously been atoning for Maggie May all these years with his lusting after girls young enough to be his daughter.
FT's Tim on April 11th, 2008
Oh!
Chas and Dave and Tottenham Hotspur!
Status Quo and Manchester United!
Fat Boys and the Beach Boys?
Brian on April 11th, 2008
I love this song and ” Atlantic Crossing “.
At the time of it’s release on vinyl it had all the slow songs ( ballads ) on one side and all the fast songs ( mostly rock ) on the other. I always saw that as a representation of USA - UK.
If you are ever taking a plane somewhere, make sure this is on your ipod at take off.
Chris Brown on April 11th, 2008
@82 - Well, you’re not allowed to use a iPod at takeoff. Which is probably quite a good reason to have that album on it IMO!
I don’t really grasp the idea of putting fast songs on one side and slow ones in the other - doesn’t it just make the record sound more boring than it is? Mind you, the most recent act to do that were Counting Crows so that problem would hardly arise…
The Pipes And Drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards?
Billy Smart on April 11th, 2008
The first Mary Jane Girls album has a slow and an uptempo side - clearly designed to be listened to by couples, who would improvise their actions around the music.
Brian on April 11th, 2008
Chris @ 83 : Back in the day it was equivalent of a ” chill ” CD . And you’d party to other side. I believe there are still
CD’s like this today.
crag on April 11th, 2008
Of course one of Rod’s contemporaries that we will be discussing very shortly released two albums in ‘77 that were state of the art in terms of one side being uptempo and the other being “chill out”…
Billy Smart on April 11th, 2008
Indeed, combining posts 84 and 86, I can remember watching an interview with Marc Almond, where he talked about experiencing his sexual awakening choreographed to the movements of ‘Low’.
Snif on April 13th, 2008
Fun Boy Three and Bananarama
wwolfe on April 15th, 2008
In answer to your question as to why rock produced anthems in a way and to a degree unlike any other genre, I think it’s because it was treated as a quasi-religion in a way and to a degree that was unlike any other genre. Having grown up during the 1970s, my sense is that this approach to rock probably peaked during the first half of that decade.
Chris Brown on April 16th, 2008
Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip?
Two Men, A Drum Machine And Trumpet?