adrian belew - guitar, vocals
1) big electric cat
2) the momur
3) stop it
4) the man in the moon
5) naive guitar
6) hot sun
7) the lone rhinoceros
8) swingline
9) adidas in heat
10) animal grace
11) the final rhino
strong effort
the thing i always notice about adrian belew's first record is that i always walk away from it weirded out if i listen to it once, but if it ends up on rotation then it makes more and more sense on each listen. that makes it not just a grower but a record that you need to let grow on you every time you put it on. i think that's less of a commentary on the record's abstraction and more a reflection of it's stylistic explorations, which have a certain affinity with gen y indie rock but are, overall, going to be largely alien to just about anybody that didn't live through the late 70s. at points, the record sounds very dated; ironically, though, it's the song structures that sound dated, rather than the technology, which has largely aged quite well. so, the record packs this sort of initial "disco cringe" that weakens on successive listens, when the songs become more and more familiar. in the end, the disc flows well as a cohesive whole.
my connection to the progressive rock of the 1970s and 1980s is largely through sorting through my father's cd collection, and it's a happy coincidence that he happened to have an interest in guitar players, but this isn't a record that was ever in his collection. rather, it's something i've only ever interacted with through mp3. this is true of all of the early belew material, up to the guitar as orchestra. i recall some offhand remarks that his solo work was largely forgettable, which acted as a strong disincentive for further exploration until as late a date as the mid 00s and only after connecting fairly strongly with sides one and two. rather, he had a cd called "sleepless: the concise king crimson" that acted as my early teenage introduction to both belew and robert fripp. unfortunately, my father was one of the people that made the error (and the economics of the situation were no doubt relevant) of selling his sizable record collection at the dawn of the cd era. it's something he slowly rebuilt, but he deeply regretted that decision for the rest of his life. it seemed to have large consequences on his general interest in music, as limited funds that would have previously been dedicated to buying new music became dedicated to replacing old music. the result was that he basically skipped the 90s, only catching up by sorting through my cd collection. i have to wonder how widespread this phenomenon was. anyways, that means that the greatest hits disc was related to the slow, expensive and time consuming task of replacing lost vinyl. 70s and 80s crimson discs came in periodically (and i think he prioritized them because he noticed that i was reacting particularly well to them), but there was never a solo belew disc amongst them.
i think my dad's analysis of belew's solo work was generally correct, but this first disc very much stands out relative to the other pop discs. at the time, belew was coming fresh out of working with five of the most important musicians of the twentieth century: frank zappa, david bowie, brian eno, robert fripp and david byrne. they all show their influence on the record in different ways. see, this is the record's tragic flaw, though: it pulls ideas from a lot of different places into a highly competent combination but it doesn't really present any ideas of it's own. belew would continue this general formula for many years, with varying results but generally not with as much of an attempt to form a synthesis and certainly not as much of an influence from zappa. it's that latter aspect that both makes the disc more interesting than his other solo material (which largely exists as an anachronistic bridge between bowie's berlin period and the talking heads) and essential in the context of belew's substantial body of work.
if i'm suggesting a record from 1982 as essential then, surely, it must be a classic? as noted, the record has a really dated sound and is more of an interesting collection of existing ideas than any kind of statement of it's own. beyond that, there is a juvenile sense of humour on display that just comes off today as totally lame. if there's a debate around whether zappa was an asshole or a comedian, there's little debate over whether he was offensive; belew is carrying on similar themes, but seems generally interested in humour rather than offense and consequently waters his misogyny down to a sort of clownishness that couldn't legitimately offend much of anybody. the record also contains lengthy tributes to the cat and the rhinoceros, which is just not the topical content of classic records. sorry.
despite it's substantial flaws, it is a well produced and interestingly written record from start to finish that happens to wear it's influences on it's sleeves but still stands up as better than average and is fully worth exploring - especially if you're a fan of more than one of the five aforementioned artists.