Did you know that there is a rock band named "Rod Stewart = Hate"? There is. Listening to Rod's third album, Every Picture Tells a Story, I begin to understand why. Not that it's a hateful album. It's a perfect album, in fact, an album driven by acoustic instruments -- piano, dobro and mandolin, mostly -- and that, impossibly, rocks like crazy. And that's because Rod Stewart is a force of nature, a big, blustering, strutting, soulful singer who can still sound pleadingly poignant. It's a neat trick, and on that album he might be the greatest singer in rock music. The title track, in spite of its misogynistic lyrics, contains some of the best singing ever committed to recorded media.And he threw it all away for ... Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? Rod Stewart = Hate. It's an equation that's all too easy to understand.
4 comments:
Andy,
I really love the "The Rod Stewart Album" aka "Thin". We used to jam to it in my friends basement with tie die sheet walls, strobes, black lights, about 12 speakers. Yeah, Rod knew how to rock but he apparently forgot.
Tim
I know, eh? I loved Rod with Jeff Beck group and Faces, and loved this very album, but then he just lost it and became a joke. What a waste!
Such a brilliant album. I'm also partial to "Never a Dull Moment." Things went downhill shortly after. I bet Rod wishes he knew what he knows now when he was younger.
This is the only music I ever checked out because of one of your posts. I was surprised to find the first line of Amazing Grace introducing one of the songs.
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