Dec. 2, 1977 record review: Christmas shopping with Jethro T. Megahertz
Another unexpected encounter with my imaginary friend.
Dec.
2, 1977
It was Jethro T. Megahertz, the
legendary media wizard, all spiffed up in a white suit and tie. In his hand was
a device that resembled a tricorder from the old “Star Trek” TV show. It
blinked its lights and issued a stream of digital and alphabetical reports.
“Megahertz, you scoundrel,” I accosted
him. “I thought you retired to a quiet life of listening to public radio
stations. How come you’re out peddling friendly technology? Does the Better
Business Bureau know about this?”
“Trust me,” Megahertz deadpanned.
“Would I steer you wrong? This is strictly the finest space-movie surplus that
money can buy. This little baby can analyze anything. Anything. Which means
you’ll never have another bad avocado. Think of what that’ll do for you. And if
you program it right, it reads the grooves on the records while they’re still
in the jackets. It’ll even transmit the sound to an earphone.”
“Why, that’s just amazing, Megahertz,”
I gasped. “But this stuff must be strictly for millionaires only.”
“Oh, no,” he assured me. “You can have
it for only $28.”
“Only $28?”
“Plus batteries. They’re extra. Only
$450 apiece.”
“What does it use? Dilithium
crystals?”
“Something like that. Let me show you
what this little marvel can do. See that kid over there with the copy of Annie
Haslam’s ‘Annie in Wonderland?’”
“Holy mackerel, your gadget’s going
crazy, Megahertz,” I said. “Doesn’t it like the woman with the golden voice from
the group Renaissance? She’s so good with them.
“These read-outs aren’t too
encouraging,” Megahertz observed. “From these figures, it’s probably the major
disappointment of the holiday season. Here, take the earphone and we’ll scan
the cut that soured the computations for good.”
“It’s Rodgers and Hammerstein,” I
said, recognizing the drift of violins into “If I Loved You.” “It sounds like
she’s been embalmed.”
“Exactly. I expected more out of
producer Roy Wood too. I always thought he was more adventurous than the other
guys in the Move, Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan. Lynne and Bevan, of course, are the
main filaments in Electric Light Orchestra.”
“What does your gadget have to say
about ELO’s new album, ‘Out of the Blue?’” I asked. “Does it have a bias toward
records with jukebox spaceships on the cover?”
“Not really,” Megahertz grinned,
pressing some buttons. “Being a four-sided album, the data on it is a little
more complex. And then there’s the glossy depth of ELO’s production, which has
to be penetrated to determine if there’s any artistic merit.”
“That’s a big job,” I conceded. “Can
this thing handle it?”
“Sure, nothing to it. See this reading
here? This indicates that ELO had a chance to match the Beatles’ white album or
some of the lesser works of Beethoven, but they made cotton candy instead. It
tests out as sugary, fluffed-up radio music, a pretty formula, guaranteed to
please. They didn’t tamper with it, but there’s no inspired experimentation
either. Still, they’ve surely got a monster here. The scanner picks up two hits
– ‘Turn to Stone’ and ‘Sweet Talkin’ Woman’ – and maybe a third.”
“How come that light is flashing?”
“That’s to remind us not to confuse
ELO with ELP – Emerson, Lake & Palmer. They’ve just followed their deadly
serious ‘Works, Volume 1,’ with ‘Works, Volume 2.’ The group must’ve figured
that all work and no play makes a dull, pompous band. The reading indicates
they’re having fun. What’s this at the end? I believe it’s ‘Show Me the Way to
Go Home.’”
“Must’ve been some party,” I nodded.
“Do you suppose they’ll record the morning after and call it ‘Volume 3?’”
“Let’s hit the probability button and
see if you’re right,” Megahertz exhaled. “How about that? Six percent chance.
Odds are they’ll get serious again.”
“Remarkable, Megahertz, but there’s no
way this gadget can have taste. Especially when it comes to the New Wave. The
Sex Pistols won’t fit into any microprocessor.”
“Let me make a few recalibrations
here,” he mused. “Aha, the data’s coming through now. Look how it makes the
lights jump. It’s amazing how strong and savage all this nihilism and
manifesto-shouting can be. ‘Don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it,’
isn’t that the line?
“It’s exhilarating just to sample it
from time to time. When there’s no future, it frees up a lot of aspects about
the present. Johnny Rotten provokes a lot of thought. But he’s not the greatest
introduction to punk. When you compute the accessibility quotient, he comes in
below the Ramones and Elvis Costello.
“Here’s another feature you’ll
appreciate as a critic,” Megahertz prompted. “An irony detector. Let’s open it
up and see what happens. How about that? Right on the button. Shaun Cassidy’s
‘Born Late.’ Cassidy’s all right and he’s taking the trip Eric Carmen always
wanted to take. And he’s doing it with Carmen’s songs. Carmen wrote ‘Hey,
Deanie.’ Do you suppose Carmen was born too soon?”
“OK, Megahertz, enough of the fancy
extras. I need a device that can answer the basic questions, like what’s good
for Christmas and what isn’t.”
“How do you want them? Sunnyside-up or
randomly?”
“Randomly,” I ordered. “Is that the
first one? The Muppets? Megahertz, is that thing out of its mind?”
“Negative,” he answered. “There’s a
strong indication that the album will be loved to death by children of all
ages. Excellent gift item, I’d say. Here’s another one. ‘Reckless Abandon’ by
the David Bromberg Band.”
“That little box must’ve read my
mind,” I marveled. “Excellent music for driving, breakneck banjo and mellow
guitar. Lots of good old blues and bluegrass tunes. Lots of good new tunes too,
like Rick Danko’s ‘What a Town.’ Bromberg now has a neatly-trained singing
voice. And his advice to bachelors in ‘Beware, Brother, Beware’ just knocks me
out.”
“Here’s a rundown of new stuff from
folks who made it big the last time around,” Megahertz offered. “Best one
appears to be Boz Scaggs’ ‘Down Two, Then Left.’ Same great mixture of romantic
ballads and streetwise disco as in ‘Silk Degrees,’ but spaced out with a dash
of sparkling dry futurism.
“You want categories? This thing will
give you that too. Sweetest harmony in a love song? That’s Ashford &
Simpson’s ‘Send It,’ where the voices don’t just match, they embrace. Most
coquettish new country sweetheart? You knew that one all along.
“How do I find out what the bummers
are?”
“Just push this little minus button
over here.”
“Terrific, here they come. Wet
Willie’s ‘Manorisms,’ where ‘Doin’ All the Right Things (The Wrong Way)’ must
be more than a song title. Gary Wright’s ‘Touch and Gone,’ which the indicators
say is what happens to the music after the first song on each side. And Ray
Charles’ ‘True to Life,’ which becomes untrue right around ‘Oh, What a
Beautiful Morning.’”
“Drat,” Megahertz exclaimed, “the
scanner seems to be stuck on something. No wonder. It was the triple-album Neil
Young retrospective, ‘Decade.’ It’s as heavy as a tombstone. It’s too much for
these delicate circuits. Even space-age technology has its limits, you know.”
* *
* * *
IN
THE PHOTO: The cover of Ashford & Simpson’s “Send It.”
* *
* * *
FOOTNOTE:
In retrospect, Megahertz’s gadget was pretty good at picking winners. “The
Muppet Show,” the first album from the TV show, went Gold in the
Audio magazine considers David
Bromberg’s “Reckless Abandon” to be “still his best-recorded and best-played
studio effort.” It was re-mastered and re-released in a package with his
subsequent LP, “Bandit in a Bathing Suit,” in 1998.
“Born Late” was Shaun Cassidy’s second
solo album and his last successful one. “Hey Deanie” hit No. 7 on the Billboard
singles chart.
The Boz Scaggs follow-up to “Silk
Degrees,” while reasonably successful, fell short of the previous album’s success. It
only went Platinum, not five times Platinum, and neither of its singles, “Hard
Times” and “
For Ashford & Simpson, “Send It” was their
breakthrough album as artists in their own right. Until that point, they had
been writing hit songs for other people for more than 10 years, among them “Let’s
Go Get Stoned” for Ray Charles.
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