DEMIS ROUSSOS – The Roussos Phenomenon (EP)
(Special note: I have been unable to find a copy of all four tracks on the EP, so this review is written without having ever heard “So Dreamy”. So the mark out of ten is – unusually – subject to change. Though frankly I doubt it will.)
In a wayward year of odd Number Ones, this is one of the rummest. It isn’t the sort of thing I’d want to listen to very often, if at all, and if it was typical of the kind of records that top the charts, well, we wouldn’t be here. But there are enough intriguing touches on The Roussos Phenomenon to not dismiss it as wholly ridiculous. You are occasionally reminded that yes, this Demis Roussos is the same D.R. who released 666, a prog triple concept album about the Book of Revelation, the year before recording most of this…. slightly more accessible material. The phased synths on “My Friend The Wind”, for instance, are a pretty nice twist on the song. Meanwhile there’s the extraordinary wobbling voice – not being used on prime material here but with enough fire and conviction to make “Forever And Ever” slightly less disreputable than it ought to be. He can’t do much with the woeful ”Sing An Ode To Love”, though.
I’m guessing that the public’s brief embrace of Roussos didn’t indicate any great swell of favour for Greek popular song (which was and remains a tough ask for the rugged British ear). Rather I would imagine it sprung from a) the suddenly Mediterranean climate making this kind of slow-baked saganaki sound good; b) accumulated memories of holidays during the Greek island package tour boom – these songs had been huge native hits for Roussos over the last few years; c) it being sung by a huge bearded bloke in a glittery kaftan. As a fat man with a beard myself, I think Roussos gets a slightly raw deal here – from garage rock to prog, through pop, opera and even a stab at hip-hop, he’s had a go at everything. Has any other artist tackled such a wide span of genres? But with the best will in the world I can’t claim that The Roussos Phenomenon is any real good.
3
erithian one of the reasons i think that high-octane melisma gets an overdetermined nod in these kinds of competitions is exactly because it feels objectively quantifiable in a way that (say) “interpretative imagination” never could: judges who disagree about everything else (and despise one another) can agree this is present as an attained skill even when they don’t think it’s good for the music — and i suspect this sense of a certain agreed-on terrain of judgeable quality is essential for it to feel like a potentially just competition (whereas if the judges were considered to agree on NOTHING, the winners would feels is they were were far more arbitrary)
(i agree it’s a bad development: leona has exactly the wrong sensibility to pull it off)
Given the good weather, my general good mood and my understandable reluctance to make contributing to this discourse as stressful as, or more stressful than, my day job (which is a very stressful one), I have now decided to adopt the following policy with regard to Popular comments:
Henceforth I will only respond to comments which are coherently and convincingly argued and demonstrate that the commentator has actually read and absorbed whatever I have to say, regardless of whether or not they agree with me.
I will merely note with some sadness that, since coherent and convincing argument requires skill, intelligence and integrity, it is hardly surprising that certain posters find it far easier to expunge generalised, unthought-through streams of personal abuse (including cry baby and really quite vicious accusations of lying and alcoholism)/pseudo-Oedipal rage/ageing adolescent sulking/therapy room gliberal platitudes, and in the process of doing so indicate that they haven’t actually read my words at all and are really not interested in participating in a MEANINGFUL collective network.
Perhaps such passive consumer whingers would be far happier composing sonnets of bile for the BBC’s Have Your Say section, or the letters pages of the Daily Mail. In any case, I certainly do not propose to waste any more of my valuable time on having to deal with such arrant and recividist puerility.
Tom post 73 – I considered your first view when I re-read his piece, but I think he WAS attempting to claim an epiphany when he heard Dylan – otherwise he wouldn’t have added his trade-mark obscure reference in Ayler!
I would certainly prefer to continue to challenge posts rather than ignore them – otherwise posters like Marcello believe their views are accepted as gospel.
However, if you would prefer that one individual can dictate to the others, perhaps I should just steer clear of the site in fututre.
Erithian should have returned to Royal Holloway as a mature student in 1994 if he wanted to hear ‘Zombie’ – You could have heard “WITH THURRR TANKS AND THURRR BOMBS!! ZAHMBEE!! ZAHHMBEE!!” blaring out of every other hall of residence room many many times.
I had a theory that every year there had to be one “strong woman in pop” whose album would sell to a high proportion of female students. After The Cranberries, there was Alanis, and after Alanis there was Catatonia. I don’t know who came next in the lineage.
Dido?
I obviously didn’t make myself clear. Nothing I said in my post could REMOTELY be construed as “preferring that one individual can dictate to the others”.
I’d prefer people to present their own opinions, and if that disagrees with others, so be it. That goes for you, Marcello, Rosie, anyone else commenting. If someone else says something you think is worth arguing with, argue with it. If they say something you think isn’t worth arguing with, ignore it rather than get on the high horse.
Oh Christ, here am I depicted as Popular’s resident “Zombie” fan, which I’m not, honestly. I did say melisma was OK when it was used sparingly, which it patently isn’t on that particular track!! Much preferred Alanis. (Billy – could it have been Macy Gray?)
Leona deservedly won the competition with some excellent performances, but someone obviously told her that by cranking the vocal histrionics to 11 she could have a huge hit in the US, and regrettably they were right!
Marcello – I’m not planning to enter into an argument here, but “vicious accusation of alcoholism” is a bit strong, when vinylscot only suggested that you’d been on the sauce to celebrate Fulham staying up (quite justifiable if you were – if I’d had more alcohol and fewer kids in the house yesterday, by now I’d be writing incoherent stuff along the lines of “giggsysabloodylegend”…)
And vinylscot – we don’t want anyone staying off the site. It’s richer than ever with people’s opinions, and we need to keep it that way.
‘I had a theory that every year there had to be one “strong woman in pop” whose album would sell to a high proportion of female students. After The Cranberries, there was Alanis, and after Alanis there was Catatonia. I don’t know who came next in the lineage.’
P!nk!
I am delighted to say that none of the women I knew at university gave more than a second’s thought to the Cranberries! Unless they had secret meetings to discuss strong women in pop of course.
I think that you really have to hang out with undergraduates to really be able to trace the succession with accuracy, but Macy Gray then Pink does sound right to me. Would Avril Lavigne come next?
For the most part, the women with whom I was friends at University liked Elastica and Bjork a lot more than The Cranberries – as did I!
One girl who I liked a lot was obsessed with Kula Shaker though, probably because she fancied Crispian Mills. I didn’t say anything…
It’d be ideal if the current one in the lineage were KT Tunstall, eh Billy?
Christ, when I think of melisma I think of Sam Cooke, not the bleedin’ Cranberries!
Crag: I just pulled “Mojo” out of my arse, I don’t read any of the rock mags and have no idea of their individual stances so I could just as easily have referenced Q or Uncut or Word. Though I did buy Word once because they had a bit about my old blog (complete with screenshot!) in it.
Oh, and can I just say “bloody Manc bastards, we’ll get you in Moscow”
“I just pulled “Mojo” out of my arse”-sounds painful!(boom-tish)
Would Beth Ditto be the current “strong woman”?
If there is only one “strong woman in pop” at once (which seems a kind of ridiculous idea since we’ve already mentioned Elastica and Bjork as big newsworthy hitmaking contemporaries of the Cranberries!) then I think that’s a function of record companies having zero ideas or bravery when it comes to marketing female acts rather than a function of pop or even of student tastes!
But Elastica and Bjork really only registered with girls who had more than a casual interest in music. Even at 18 and 19, most people fall into the category of those who buy two or three albums a year – who were buying The Cranberries, The Beautiful South and Oasis when I was an undergraduate.
So I’d guess that Beth Ditto isn’t the current “strong woman in pop”, because I reckon that it would only be clued-up music fan sort of girls who would have Gossip albums (not though the young buy CDs any more), rather than a more casual follower. This year’s model is much more likely to come from the Winehouse/ Lilly Allen/ Duffy axis.
Bjork was massive at the time though – #1 albums, constant press coverage. She wasn’t a gossip column fixture like Lily A or Amy W but she was certainly in the same orbit as the Cranberries.
I’m always really suspicious of characterising the tastes of what used to be called on ILX the “12 CD crowd” – it tends to make the mistake of assuming that they only encounter and pick from popular stuff, whereas in my experience it’s a mix of popular stuff and stuff you’re surprised they’ve heard of. “Not being that into music” tends to mean “Not interested in stepping outside my comfort zone” but that comfort zone can be surprisingly deep, even if it isn’t broad.
Also I think the specific motivation you’re implying here – they like strong women because they are women who recognise and enjoy that strength – is one which suggests a level of engagement with music that goes beyond ‘casual interest’ anyway!
i think the notion of a “strong woman of pop” — as role to be taken on by one figure at any one time — only makes sense in a grander theory of an entire numbered upper pantheon of pop, a set of unchanging top-level roles, complete with subtle internal geometry as the players of the roles shift and change: alongside the strong woman of pop, is the bearded godking of pop, the truculent sealord of pop, the slightly dull and worthy blind seer of pop, the perilous sex-kitten of pop, the ethereal space-children of pop, the vile-tastic goatsucker of pop and so on…
the bearded godking of pop
Back to Roussos AT LAST.
bearded godking of pop: george michael (via roussos)
truculent sealord of pop: h p baxxter
slightly dull and worthy blind seer of pop: robblie billiams
perilous sex-kitten of pop: mariahmerie
ethereal space-children of pop: daft punk
vile-tastic goatsucker of pop: phil collins RIP
Argh! An inherently flawed conversation that mentions Elastica! Must… not… rise to bait…
My strong woman in pop before Justine of course was Whigfield. Or perhaps Heather Smalls, she had very big hair you know.
Heather Small & Love Affair more like (too obscure?)
If only Heather had remembered to take that gobstopper out of her mouth every time she started singing.
1994 Mercury judges should have been put before the firing squad and I don’t mean Siralan and Nick and Margaret.
100+ comments per track becoming pleasingly common…
100+ comments per track becoming increasingly common, very pleasing…
At the time I thought poor old Demis just looked like a fat git in a shower curtain, and the song was the height of schmaltz. It could have been written in any decade of the previous 6. Godawful. No wonder punk was welcomed with open arms by so many people.
I’ve tried listening to Aphrodite’s Child, but it just seemed like a poor attempt at prog, to me.
Abigail’s Party is brilliant, and not just for Alison Steadman’s knockers.
re #56 The Lamb Lies Down – feat. New York punk Rael replete with short hair /biker jacket/skinny jeans & pumps (sound familiar ?). Gabriel as the Godfather of punk ha ha!
1976 may have been a little dull in the singles charts but there was plenty of action in the album charts for those that cared i.e. Bowie’s Station To Station, Be Bop Deluxe’s Sunburst Finish, Genesis’ beautiful Collins as Gabriel epic Trick Of The Tail, Steely Dan’s Royam Scam, Wonders Song In The Key, Eagles Hotel California, ACDC, Rush, Heart, Hawkwind, Steve Miller, Blue Oyster Cult, Boston etc. Ok maybe not everybody’s idea of excitement but it kept this particular teenager off the streets.
Singing tent Rousoss Med in a box hit will forever (and ever) be linked to Abigail’s Party so much so that I can’t really recall what I thought about it at the time. It seemed fairly innocuous stuff though & would have chimed in perfectly with the heatwave. Not sure I would have much use for it now though.
Tom – if you haven’t seen AP – then you really, really must – it may have more of a bearing on your mark then seeking out the missing EP track.
For real 1976 seduction and sensuality you still can’t beat Marvin Gaye’s I Want You.
The US #1 single at this time was “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band – I haven’t heard any Mr. Roussos so I have no idea if it is better, worse, or what.
Who is h p baxxter?
I definitely prefer Afternoon Delight (the song and – ahem -the concept) better than this stuff!
Well, I saw the Roussos Phemomenon TV doc when it first screened, decided that Demis qualified as “interesting” in a skewed, culty, so-out-it’s-in sort of way, bought the EP, and then promptly lost interest again about two weeks later. Having said that, I still like the curious time signature of the melodic figure that opens “Forever And Ever”, and “My Friend The Wi-i-i-i-nd” still raises a faint smile.
The full 10 minute extended version of “L.O.V.E. Got A Hold On Me”, Demis’s 1978 excursion into disco, is at worth at least one listen.
H P Baxxter is the, shall we say, lead vocalist with top pop band of the moment Scooter. Also known as the “Screaming Lord,” “Ice Ice Baby” and “Whistling Dave”/”Dave From Sheffield” inter multiple alia.
Been checking out a bit of Demis Roussos stuff lately after hearing him (and especially) ‘I Dig You’ (another disco track) bigged up on some trendy dance/dj sites lately. I didn’t realise ‘I Dig You’ was talked of in such hushed tones and that there’s even a pretty cutting edge remix of it too.
I generally think he’s pretty good and “Winter Rains” very good.
“I dig you” was previously called “I dig who?” and was an obscure single. Who it was slated to, artist-wise, I can’t say as the song title (it might even be called “Who”) has proved to be ungoogleable.
Ah, I have found it:
In 1973 Vangelis’ solo career began in earnest. His first “official” solo album was Earth, though it did actually feature a group of musicians including ex-Aphrodite’s Child guitarist Silver Koulouris and also vocalist and songwriter Robert Fitoussi (better known as F.R. David of “Words” fame).[14] This line-up, later briefly going out under the name “Odyssey”, released a single in 1974 titled “Who”, but that was Vangelis’ last involvement with them.
Re 111: that all sort of falls into place as on the site that I read about “I Dig You” there was another thread about “tell me what Vangelis I need to hear” and the Odyssey “Who” single was recommended (and linked to its place on discogs)and described as being almost impossible to find anywhere outside a (quite obscure in itself) French import “space disco” compilation from the late 90s.
Well, it was issued as a single in the UK on WWA back in 1974, according to Popsike it’s worth £30-£40 or so.
114 heard them both now youtube (Who) and soulseek (Sad Face) ‘Who’ slightly better I’d say with some nice organ of the sort that could have possibly been sampled effectively by the right producer in a hardcore/organ house track.