'It's never enough for a writer to make a
personal success with his own songs; others must take them up, give them varying
treatments and by doing do prove the writer's talent all over again'. Do
they? That's what the note on the back cover says anyway but I'm not sure I
agree - why must they? I know why the 'others' on this album have taken
them up, and that's to make some easy money off the back of the success of the
artist. Because whilst not exactly forgotten today, Gilbert O'Sullivan
was mightily successful and a far bigger noise in the early seventies
than he is now. After all, he hasn't troubled the
UK top 50 since 1980, but by the time this album came out in 1973 he'd
already had two number one singles that year ('Clair' and 'Get Down', both on
here) and a decent enough run of top five hits prior to it.
In presenting an album of O'Sullivan's hits in
O'Sullivan's style (you can forget that 'give them varying treatments'
guff, it doesn't apply here), the anonymous folk behind this album already had
certain cards pre-stacked in their favour. For
one, O'Sullivan was never Captain Beefheart or anything like it with his music
and so it's no real stretch for any competent band to reproduce his output with
a fair degree of accuracy. As far as O'Sullivan himself goes, then again,
anybody out to impersonate him would have the benefit having a distinctive voice
to follow that's not at all hard to mimic. In fact, one of the main reasons I've
never had much time for Gilbert is that monotone, nasally whine that
always delivers his songs with the same dispassionate - almost disinterested -
remove, regardless of whether he's singing something downbeat ('Alone Again
(Naturally)', 'Nothing Rhymed'), something upbeat ('Get Down', 'Ooh Wakka Doo
Wakka Day') or something twee and sickly ('Clair). Riddled with emotion it is
not.
But I digress; I'm not reviewing a Gilbert
O'Sullivan 'Best Of' am I? I'm reviewing a 'Best Of Gilbert O'Sullivan' as
performed by anonymous backroom session men. That's a different proposition, and
whilst I can say that none of the singers here quite nail that dour honk, for
the most part they're near as dammit and, when twinned with pretty faithful
renditions of the music, most aspirations are met and there's not a lot to
criticise. In fact, the album represents decent
value too in that it even includes the non single 'hit'
'Matrimony', which is a bonus of sorts for fans I guess, though 'No Matter How I
Try' (number 5 in 1971) is curiously absent.
I guess much of your attitude to this is going to
depend on your attitude to O'Sullivan himself, and as long as you go into this
with your eyes wide open then you're not going to feel short changed by these
copies as none of these versions are so wide of the mark so as to be something
to be remarked upon (or to have the piss taken out of them). In trying to
'be' him, I've got the same problems with these versions as I do with O'Sullivan
himself, only these versions leave me slightly colder and for my own part this
would probably have been more enjoyable if those session singers had tried to
inject some of their own personality into their interpretations instead of just
mimicking. But that's my problem. I suppose the latter option was the lesser
burden for a knock-off album like this, but in fairness as an album of
knock-offs it's one of the better ones I've come across (though that bar isn't
set particularly high).
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