Odds and Ends

Each week I use this space to post some mini-reviews, cool tracks, random thoughts, neat news, or whatever else I damn well please.



MiniReview

Simon Felton “Surrender, Dorothy!” – This is the second solo record from Garfield’s Birthday’s Simon Felton. His last solo CD, “Failing In Biology”, was a notable nugget of smart Brit pop (read review here). Felton marches along the same track on “Surrender, Dorothy!”, constructing careful melodies augmented with airy harmonies and psychedelic overtones. The hooks take longer to sink in than last time and the abundance of slower tracks is going to make some people yawn. On the other hand, there is some more sizzling guitar work to be found – check out the solo on “Peepshow” for example. The main attraction is the pop perfection in “Marbles”, and “Novelty” is another highlight I’d encourage you to check out. Recommended for fans of The Smiths, XTC, and The Divine Comedy.

Simon Felton – Official site.



Surprise of the week

Footloose is being remade. But the surprise comes from looking at the soundtrack artists…dissing Kenny Loggins and recruiting the likes of Cee-Lo Green amongst a bunch of country stars and…Smashing Pumpkins?! What sort of musical schizophrenic is going to want this? Here are the gory details.



And if that isn’t bad enough, they are remaking Dirty Dancing too.



News

Swallow this: Poison frontman Bret Michaels believes the band will make another album when the time is right. Here’s to hoping they can recapture the magic of their heyday. Read the story here.



Whose gonna buy your wild reissues? Get a load of all you get with the 20th Anniversary edition of U2’s landmark record “Achtung Baby” – check it out here.



Another hodgepodge of “new” stuff is coming from Foreigner in September. A 3CD collection – one acoustic disk, one full of re-recordings of hits (why?), and one of a live concert. Read all about it here.



New Butch Walker called “The Spade” arrives August 30. In the meantime, grab a FREE DOWNLOAD of the first single, “Summer of ‘89”. Details here.



Michael Sweet has left the band Boston for his old band, Stryper. Good news, bad news, who cares? Story here.



Random iPOD song of the week

Pop perfection. Squeeze’s “Hourglass” – one of their finest moments.

Classic melodic rock CD of the week

By Stephen Kasenda

FOREIGNER “Mr. Moonlight” (1995)

There are two important things to mention about Foreigner’s "Mr. Moonlight". First, it marked the return of Lou Gramm to the band, and also long-time members Rick Wills and Dennis Elliot. Second, the album basically marked the end of this chapter of Foreigner until Jones resurrected the band in 2009 with a new lineup. 1995 was surely a bad year for melodic rock - album sales were disappointing and rated so low that many people didn't even know the band still existed. However, this record has many good songs worth listening to, especially if you love the tender tunes of AOR.

I'm gonna start with "White Lie", a great upbeat track to start the album. This one is followed by "Rain", and the smooth transition of each note is lovable. "Until The End of Time" is relatively unknown, but the single reached a quite respectable position in the Adult Contemporary chart back then. Some other notable tracks are "Running The Risk", "I Keep Hoping" (which is the best ballad on the album), and "Hand On My Heart". The rest are good except "Real World" and "Big Dog", which I think should have been left behind and replaced with other songs in the veins of "Cold As Ice" or "Waiting For A Girl Like You".

It's nice to see the recent comeback of Lou Gramm, whose voice is still as strong as in the 80s. "Mr. Moonlight" is an underrated gem with a lot of high value goodies that you can find cheap. Don't let anyone fool you into thinking that this album is horrible!

Read more of Stephen’s features at MetalMusicArchives.