- Audio CD (26 Feb 2008)
- Number of Discs: 1
- Label: Sanctuary
- ASIN: B000CPU7ZG
- Other Editions: Audio CD | MP3 Download
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 229,308 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Harmless pop eccentrics don't come any more clearly defined than agog, twangy-guitared Bostonian troubadour Jonathan Richman, whose 21st studio album Not So Much to Be Loved as to Love beckons us into a twilight world of 50s-flavoured Latino skiffle where an acoustic Lou Reed is spanish and is happily employed as a blithesome childrens' television presenter. As befits the capricious candour of Richman's prior work, Not So Much to Be Loved is best approached with a look of bewilderment, a tapping foot timed in with appropriate hand-jive movements, a traveller's grasp of several Mediterranean languages, a working knowledge of great European painters (Salvador Dali was the antidote to Richman's childhood nightmares, apparently) and a comprehensive appreciation of life's absurdities.
Not that everything is so simple. The gospel vibe of "He Gave Us the Wine to Taste It", for example, could be about joie-de-vivre, deistic genuflection or may merely be expressing a preference for viticulturally inclined thirst-quenching while the creaking, gloomy harmonium of "Abu Jamal" underscores a rare protest song emphasising the innocence of a real-life Philadelphian journalist languishing on Death Row. This serious song aside, much of "Not So Much to Be Loved" is deft, daft and as indispensable as you'd expect a really good Jonathan Richman album to be. -- Kevin Maidment
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Whenever a Jonathan Richman album is released there lurks a dark fear that this one will be different, that he'll have turned cool or cynical or something. But if any hero ever repaid faith it's Jonathan.
A Richman album is not a slick affair, with each note tightly produced and no effect wasted. Rather, it's more like a diary-cum-party which he shares with the world. So the feel is uneven - some gems, some slighter pieces, a rerecording of an old classic, instrumentals, songs in Spanish. And this is just what we get here, devotees will be relieved to know. "Vincent Van Gogh" is the rerecording; as well as Spanish there are songs in French and Italian. To be honest (as Jo-Jo always says we should be), the predecessor, Her Mystery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, was perhaps his poorest offering, so it's heartening that the standard is back to normal. Loyal sidekick Tommy Larkins continues on drums, and Curly Keranen is welcomed back into the fold. "He Gave Us The Wine To Taste" is a classic formulation of Richman philosophy, but the outstanding track features Jo-Jo solo on harmonium: "Abu Jamal" is an extraordinarily moving protest song, whose passion is strangely enhanced by idiosyncratic humour (`protest with a letter/or maybe a phone call'). With Jonathan exceptionality is expected, for our hero is too sheerly human to compute. Alleluia!
A Richman album is not a slick affair, with each note tightly produced and no effect wasted. Rather, it's more like a diary-cum-party which he shares with the world. So the feel is uneven - some gems, some slighter pieces, a rerecording of an old classic, instrumentals, songs in Spanish. And this is just what we get here, devotees will be relieved to know. "Vincent Van Gogh" is the rerecording; as well as Spanish there are songs in French and Italian. To be honest (as Jo-Jo always says we should be), the predecessor, Her Mystery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, was perhaps his poorest offering, so it's heartening that the standard is back to normal. Loyal sidekick Tommy Larkins continues on drums, and Curly Keranen is welcomed back into the fold. "He Gave Us The Wine To Taste" is a classic formulation of Richman philosophy, but the outstanding track features Jo-Jo solo on harmonium: "Abu Jamal" is an extraordinarily moving protest song, whose passion is strangely enhanced by idiosyncratic humour (`protest with a letter/or maybe a phone call'). With Jonathan exceptionality is expected, for our hero is too sheerly human to compute. Alleluia!
7 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Although Jonathan Richman took to his role in "Something About Mary" with aplomb, his acoustic music, at odds with and wholly impervious to current trends, does not have much in common with gross out humour. In fact, given his ability to find the charm in even the most mundane ("the pond and the odor, the salt and the sweat, each smell is telling me a secret") his true cinematic equivalent is perhaps "American Beauty" although thankfully he has none of the pretension and inflated sense of self importance of Sam Mendes's film. Rather, like, in a very different way, Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, Richman is sincere but full of humour and perspective in all he does.
Having heard a number of the songs on this album live, it is somewhat of a disappointment on the first listen. Songs like "He Gave Us Wine To Taste" and, to a lesser degree the re-worked "Vincent van Gogh" seem lifeless in comparison with the live incarnations. Other songs bear a strong similarity to one another. However, the album is more consistent than some of Richman's albums in that there is nothing which one feels compelled to fast forward past. The flipside is that, although "The World Is Showing It's [sic] Hand" is probably the best of a solid bunch, the album lack something of the brilliance of "That Summer Feeling", "The Neighbors", "I Was Dancing At The Lesbian Bar", "My Career As A Homewrecker" and so on.
Despite these reservations, the album is a definite grower (which might seem slightly odd given the simplicity of Richman's compositions) and one should remember that there is, to paraphrase, something about Jonathan. As he sings, albeit in Italian, on the album "In this sad world, there is justice and there is a beauty to it". A 3 1/2 stars if ever there were one.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
A particularly mature and ambitious effort from JR
8 Aug 2004
Format:Audio CD
Eternally boyish Boston-born troubadour Jonathan Richman has passed through a number of phases in his 30-plus years of writing and performing: Lonely and alienated adolescent (in the early 1970's with his garage-rock outfit the Modern Lovers); childlike regression during the latter half of the '70s; sweetly goofy family-man (early 1980's to mid-'90s). Since his move to the Vapor label in the mid-90's, he has become an endearing alternative-pop cult figure, beloved for his willfully innocent yet honest chronicles of modern love and life.
Jonathan's previous effort, 2001's Her Mystery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, rarely strayed from the topic of love, and was considered too slight by some critics (including myself, as much as I enjoyed it). However, his latest, Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love, is quite possibly one of his most satisfying efforts. Being the first record he has produced entirely by himself, he seems to have settled on a sound that suits him perfectly -- this is one of the clearest, cleanest-sounding rock records I've heard in a long time, and he has his best backing ever with bassist Greg "Curly" Keranen (who first performed with Richman in the mid-'70s) and drummer/loyal touring partner Tommy Larkins, as well as with hints of brass, woodwinds and accordion.
What also makes Not So Much... particularly satisfying is both the strength and diversity of the material. My favorite track, the jaunty "The World is Showing Its Hand", is an excellent example of how Jonathan takes unironic delight in life's simplest pleasures -- in this case, taking in the smells of the various things around him ("Gimme a mowed lawn, gimme ozone, gimme summer rain / Let me smell more of the world, then I might learn something"). The jangly "He Gave Us the Wine to Taste It" is another instant classic; taken on one level, it could be just about an unusual wine-tasting, but really, it's more about simply enjoying the good things in life without having to pick them apart and analyze them too much. The title cut carries on the same basic theme of "Affection" -- the haunting ballad he originally cut in 1979 and revisited in '98 -- but this time with a catchy mid-tempo groove and gently humorous musings like "I was waitin' for affection, but I was looking in the wrong direction / What I needed was not so much to be loved as to love." (The thematic similarity to "Affection" is further underscored by the stripped-down ballad version of "Not So Much..." offered as the #15 hidden track.)
"My Baby Love Love Loves Me," which originally appeared last year on Richman's Take Me To The Plaza concert DVD, is a bouncy, typical-JR love song that would have sounded right at home on Her Mystery...; so would've the lovely, picturesque (but too-short) instrumental "Sunday Afternoon". The two songs about painters couldn't be more different: "Vincent Van Gogh" is a rollicking re-working of a tune he first recorded on 1985's long out-of-print Rockin' And Romance LP; "Salvador Dali" may lack the stick-in-your-brain hooks of "VVG" ("he loved color and he let it show"), or even the early Modern Lovers track "Pablo Picasso" (...), but its haunting melody, and its theme of looking to art to find a cure for your blues, make it a worthy addition to his songbook. In the tradition of the 4 Spanish tracks he recorded for his previous record, here Richman includes 2 highly rocking tracks that he wrote and sang in Italian ("Cosi Veloce", "In Che Mondo Viviamo"), as well as 2 French numbers (the upbeat "Les Etoiles", the languid "On a Du Soleil"). Most startling is the unusually topical "Abu Jamal", a simple yet powerful protest song.
Bottom line: I'm not sure I would recommend picking up this eclectic and often serious effort as your very first JR record, but I admire it a great deal and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is already into his stuff.
Jonathan's previous effort, 2001's Her Mystery Not Of High Heels And Eye Shadow, rarely strayed from the topic of love, and was considered too slight by some critics (including myself, as much as I enjoyed it). However, his latest, Not So Much To Be Loved As To Love, is quite possibly one of his most satisfying efforts. Being the first record he has produced entirely by himself, he seems to have settled on a sound that suits him perfectly -- this is one of the clearest, cleanest-sounding rock records I've heard in a long time, and he has his best backing ever with bassist Greg "Curly" Keranen (who first performed with Richman in the mid-'70s) and drummer/loyal touring partner Tommy Larkins, as well as with hints of brass, woodwinds and accordion.
What also makes Not So Much... particularly satisfying is both the strength and diversity of the material. My favorite track, the jaunty "The World is Showing Its Hand", is an excellent example of how Jonathan takes unironic delight in life's simplest pleasures -- in this case, taking in the smells of the various things around him ("Gimme a mowed lawn, gimme ozone, gimme summer rain / Let me smell more of the world, then I might learn something"). The jangly "He Gave Us the Wine to Taste It" is another instant classic; taken on one level, it could be just about an unusual wine-tasting, but really, it's more about simply enjoying the good things in life without having to pick them apart and analyze them too much. The title cut carries on the same basic theme of "Affection" -- the haunting ballad he originally cut in 1979 and revisited in '98 -- but this time with a catchy mid-tempo groove and gently humorous musings like "I was waitin' for affection, but I was looking in the wrong direction / What I needed was not so much to be loved as to love." (The thematic similarity to "Affection" is further underscored by the stripped-down ballad version of "Not So Much..." offered as the #15 hidden track.)
"My Baby Love Love Loves Me," which originally appeared last year on Richman's Take Me To The Plaza concert DVD, is a bouncy, typical-JR love song that would have sounded right at home on Her Mystery...; so would've the lovely, picturesque (but too-short) instrumental "Sunday Afternoon". The two songs about painters couldn't be more different: "Vincent Van Gogh" is a rollicking re-working of a tune he first recorded on 1985's long out-of-print Rockin' And Romance LP; "Salvador Dali" may lack the stick-in-your-brain hooks of "VVG" ("he loved color and he let it show"), or even the early Modern Lovers track "Pablo Picasso" (...), but its haunting melody, and its theme of looking to art to find a cure for your blues, make it a worthy addition to his songbook. In the tradition of the 4 Spanish tracks he recorded for his previous record, here Richman includes 2 highly rocking tracks that he wrote and sang in Italian ("Cosi Veloce", "In Che Mondo Viviamo"), as well as 2 French numbers (the upbeat "Les Etoiles", the languid "On a Du Soleil"). Most startling is the unusually topical "Abu Jamal", a simple yet powerful protest song.
Bottom line: I'm not sure I would recommend picking up this eclectic and often serious effort as your very first JR record, but I admire it a great deal and I strongly recommend it to anyone who is already into his stuff.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
De l'ame pour l'ame
2 July 2004
Format:Audio CD
This is a great CD ! I like it a lot. The title track, "Not so much to be loved as to love"
is the unmistakable Jonathan song, meaning also it is predictable, nothing new. I am also preferring the second version of this song which appears as the last hidden track in its naked simplicity.. Jonathan wanders in Boston nearby the reservoir..
- "Sunday afternoon", I considered as a filler until I heard some chords which reminded me of a song by the Velvet Underground, "Sunday Morning".There are other references to the Velvets on this CD, no coincidence !
- "Vincent van Gogh" revamped version is energetic and lively.. I nearly prefer this version to the original.
- "Salvador Dali" is my favourite song ! It starts like "19 in Naples" as Jonathan tells us that when he was 14 he was depressed and that Dali's paintings were the guide to the world of dreams, and the opening key to freedom. When the instruments start to play, I noticed a powerful bass line knitting a neat groove which extends itself like a mantra to climax in a perfect chorus at the end of the song. I look at the booklet, the bass player is no one else but Greg "Curly" Keranen, from the Modern Lovers #2.
- "Behold the lilies of the field" sounds like Lou Reed singing a lost song from the Velvet's Loaded album. I love this kind of Jonathan song where he uses the influences of his youth to express a mature man's feelings.
- With "Abu Jamal" Jonathan has written his classic-to-be protest song. Do you remember Dylan's "Hurricane", well "Abu Jamal" ranks at the same level.And what flabbergasted me, was to hear this Indian organ, the same as the one Nico was using ..delivering this monochromatic gloomy sound..
- "Les etoiles" and "On a du soleil" are merry songs a la Charles Trenet,they have become popular when played live.
- The two hidden tracks are very good. The first one is about the sea asking Jonathan to come home and he gets scared and feels like dying, again the Nico organ is the only instrument heard and Jonathan sounds sad, The other hidden track is the aforementionned title track with a live in studio only treatment.
is the unmistakable Jonathan song, meaning also it is predictable, nothing new. I am also preferring the second version of this song which appears as the last hidden track in its naked simplicity.. Jonathan wanders in Boston nearby the reservoir..
- "Sunday afternoon", I considered as a filler until I heard some chords which reminded me of a song by the Velvet Underground, "Sunday Morning".There are other references to the Velvets on this CD, no coincidence !
- "Vincent van Gogh" revamped version is energetic and lively.. I nearly prefer this version to the original.
- "Salvador Dali" is my favourite song ! It starts like "19 in Naples" as Jonathan tells us that when he was 14 he was depressed and that Dali's paintings were the guide to the world of dreams, and the opening key to freedom. When the instruments start to play, I noticed a powerful bass line knitting a neat groove which extends itself like a mantra to climax in a perfect chorus at the end of the song. I look at the booklet, the bass player is no one else but Greg "Curly" Keranen, from the Modern Lovers #2.
- "Behold the lilies of the field" sounds like Lou Reed singing a lost song from the Velvet's Loaded album. I love this kind of Jonathan song where he uses the influences of his youth to express a mature man's feelings.
- With "Abu Jamal" Jonathan has written his classic-to-be protest song. Do you remember Dylan's "Hurricane", well "Abu Jamal" ranks at the same level.And what flabbergasted me, was to hear this Indian organ, the same as the one Nico was using ..delivering this monochromatic gloomy sound..
- "Les etoiles" and "On a du soleil" are merry songs a la Charles Trenet,they have become popular when played live.
- The two hidden tracks are very good. The first one is about the sea asking Jonathan to come home and he gets scared and feels like dying, again the Nico organ is the only instrument heard and Jonathan sounds sad, The other hidden track is the aforementionned title track with a live in studio only treatment.
Jonathan remains the eternal troubadour, the Bostonian wanderer, the prince of dorkness.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Jonathan gets a bit more serious.
8 Aug 2005
Format:Audio CD
Jonathan Richman is a bit of an oddity in music-- best known alternately as the mastermind behind post-Velvets proto-new wave band The Modern Lovers (whose members ended up in the Cars and Talking Heads) and as the guy who sung songs in "There's Something About Mary", Jonathan Richman is truthfully difficult to categorize. His music has an innocence to it, a sing-song quality and a memorableness that gets his songs stuck in your head without driving you nuts, be it his early Lou Reed-inspired material or the European-infused acoustic pop of this record, "Not So Much to Love as to Be Loved".
What's perhaps unique about this album is that it feels a lot more serious-- this isn't to imply that Richman's previous records couldn't be looked at as serious, but that's there's a goofiness that permeates them, and its here too, but it seems like this time he's got a bit of a commentary to make.
In the end, Richman's music is something you'll love or hate, and it'll probably happen within 90 seconds of hearing him. But I've noted that many people aren't n the right frame of mind to hear Jonathan Richman. This record is certainly a reasonably good example of his work, and I personally find it to be one of my more listend to by him. My advice-- if you're curious, pick something up, listen to it, then try it again in six months if it doesn't work for you. If you're a fan and don't have this, get ahold of it, its superb.
What's perhaps unique about this album is that it feels a lot more serious-- this isn't to imply that Richman's previous records couldn't be looked at as serious, but that's there's a goofiness that permeates them, and its here too, but it seems like this time he's got a bit of a commentary to make.
In the end, Richman's music is something you'll love or hate, and it'll probably happen within 90 seconds of hearing him. But I've noted that many people aren't n the right frame of mind to hear Jonathan Richman. This record is certainly a reasonably good example of his work, and I personally find it to be one of my more listend to by him. My advice-- if you're curious, pick something up, listen to it, then try it again in six months if it doesn't work for you. If you're a fan and don't have this, get ahold of it, its superb.
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