"In the years since TONY adopted its rating system," writes Time Out New York (TONY) music critic Jay Ruttenberg, "I had resisted granting an album six stars, the magazine’s unconventional 'it goes to 11' grade. Now, I relent: Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels ... confirms his place among our best living songwriters ... It's an outstanding album ..." Rolling Stone says, "Harps and Angels is reason to wrap yourself in the flag and cheer."
"In the years since TONY adopted its rating system," writes Time Out New York (TONY) music critic Jay Ruttenberg in an online introduction to his latest review, "I had resisted granting an album six stars, the magazine’s unconventional 'it goes to 11' grade. Now, I relent: Randy Newman’s Harps and Angels, the songwriter’s first collection of new, nonsoundtrack songs this decade, confirms his place among our best living songwriters."
In Ruttenberg's six-star review, which runs in next week's issue of Time Out New York, he writes of Randy's new record: "It’s an outstanding album that, while not adhering to an overarching concept, grapples with the loss of the American Dream in unexpected and often broadly funny ways. It’s catchy, too."
He continues:
It’s difficult to imagine any other musician so nimbly addressing contemporary America, the crumbling empire, without hiding behind the abstraction that plagues so many songwriters. Forty years after his debut LP, Newman remains in a class of his own.
Ruttenberg cites other contemporary artists who have succeeded in taking on aspects of Randy's songwriting skills here and there, but finally concludes: "As for the whole shebang? Forget it—now as before, no one can touch him."
You can read the full review online now at timeout.com/newyork.
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Rolling Stone gives the album four out of five stars. While Randy has built a new set of fans of late through his songs for film, says reviewer Will Hermes, "connoisseurs covet his Seventies work, when he emerged as one of the most cutting and empathic of American singer-songwriters. So his return to political-minded material on Harps and Angels is reason to wrap yourself in the flag and cheer."
He describes the music on new album this way:
Newman works with piano, an orchestra and a Dixieland-style combo, using American musical tradition to amplify irony and yank heartstrings. The best moments echo classics like "Sail Away" and "Louisiana 1927," songs that mixed pathos and bruised patriotism with brutal wit.
Read the complete review at rollingstone.com.
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