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See Randy Newman Live
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www.southbankcentre.co.uk/rnewman
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At Southbank Centre- Priority Booking for Members. on sale 12 Nov
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Songs from this album are available to purchase as MP3s. Click on "Buy MP3" or
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
Three songs into Bad Love, Randy Newman lobs a smart bomb into the bunker of classic rock, impersonating a boomer-aged rocker just going through the motions, "Each record that [he's] making ... like a record that [he's] made--just not as good." Giving the punch line added snap is the happy irony of Newman's own music at midlife, which proves as perceptive, funny, and, yes, moving as any he's recorded. Comparisons to past triumphs are inevitable here, and mostly favourable, starting with the mock piety of "My Country", an anthem to America's virtual family life entranced by television, "having other people's voices fill our minds." Elsewhere, he grins through a new geopolitical patter song ("The Great Nations of Europe"), undertakes his own dialectic on materialism with the ghost of Karl Marx ("The World Isn't Fair"), and, in the album's mordant zenith, conjures the sputtering jealousy and lust of an elderly New Orleans burgher smitten by a sweet young thing. That song, "Shame", embellishes a piano blues that might have fit snugly on 12 Songs, with choral and instrumental flourishes that are apt and hilarious--mocking female singers repeat the title in frank emulation of Sylvia Robinson's venerable disco hit, while elsewhere Newman's arrangements suggest Carl Stalling's vivid Looney Tunes scores. --Sam Sutherland
CD Description
Not counting orchestral soundtrack albums and the guest-filled theatre piece FAUST, BAD LOVE was the first album of Randy Newman songs in over a decade. As he moved into the '80s,Newman often blunted his lyrical wit with glossy L.A. overproduction, but with the help of '90s uberproducer Mitchell Froom, he's back on track here. Froom harnesses the power of Newman's piano and a full orchestra (who share the spotlightwith a small band) for a sound that recalls Newman's early-'70s glory days.
Newman's famous irony and sarcasm are honed to a fine point here, but pointed more often at the singer than at the outside targets that filled his early albums.Newman's ironic streak is such that the listener becomes uneasy wondering how much distance exists between the composerand the unpleasant characters he portrays. On "Shame", he'sa wealthy older man whose pleas to a younger, kept woman turn violent. "The World Isn't Fair" addresses Karl Marx directly in an attempt to reconcile the fall of socialist ideals with the prosperity of a liberal capitalist. Newman's lyrical prestidigitation would be for naught without his well-developed sense of humor and Gershwinesque melodic sensibility, which help make BAD LOVE such a powerful work.
Newman's famous irony and sarcasm are honed to a fine point here, but pointed more often at the singer than at the outside targets that filled his early albums.Newman's ironic streak is such that the listener becomes uneasy wondering how much distance exists between the composerand the unpleasant characters he portrays. On "Shame", he'sa wealthy older man whose pleas to a younger, kept woman turn violent. "The World Isn't Fair" addresses Karl Marx directly in an attempt to reconcile the fall of socialist ideals with the prosperity of a liberal capitalist. Newman's lyrical prestidigitation would be for naught without his well-developed sense of humor and Gershwinesque melodic sensibility, which help make BAD LOVE such a powerful work.
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