The critical response on Randy Newman's latest release, Harps and Angels, has already started pouring in from both sides of the Atlantic. The Times (UK) gives the album five stars, concluding: "The man's a master." The Los Angeles Times has a feature profile of Randy, whom it says "has plumbed the depths and shallows of the American psyche with greater consistency than perhaps any of his contemporaries." Also, Huffington Post contributor David Wild proclaims as the Greatest Song of All Time Randy's much-covered tune "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," calling Newman's 2003 version "probably the most powerful and shaded piece of music I could ever imagine," and adding that Harps and Angels "is one of the best ever albums from the modern musical master who gave us all the greatest song of all-time."
Randy Newman's Harps and Angels is out today in the UK and will be available in the States tomorrow. The critical response has already started pouring in from both sides of the Atlantic.
After earning four stars last week from The Times's Pete Paphides, the album earns a perfect fives stars from that paper's John Bungey, who writes:
Since the 1970s Randy Newman has often been lumped in with Bob Dylan and Paul Simon as the acme of American singer-songwriters. But Newman, with his love of Dixieland and Tin Pan Alley, connects with an older tradition.
In addition to the ironic gems on the album, for which Randy is renowned, Bungey points to the surprise of "two irony-free love songs—a gorgeous remake of 'Feels Like Home' and the spare 'Losing You'" as being "part of his genius; with Newman you never quite know from which angle he will come at you." Restating the link to Dylan and referencing Leonard Cohen as well, the writer says that at this stage in his career, Randy "there is no slippage in standards. The man's a master."
To read the review, visit entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.
The Sunday Times also published a feature article on Randy in which reporter Mark Edwards asserts that Randy "deserves to be ... ranked as one of the songwriting greats" and that Harps and Angels is "as fine an album as any Newman has made." The article focuses on the complications that often come when such an exceptional songwriter uses humor to make a complex statement in a pop world. Writes Edwards:
[H]e is a serious songwriter, who just happens to use humour. And that confuses us. It used not to. In olden days, Cole Porter was considered one of the songwriting greats, despite the fact that he would trot out amusing wordplay. Actually, scrub that. He was ranked so highly because of it. But the arrival of rock music changed all that ... If you were going to be a serious songwriter, you were supposed to have something serious to say, and to say it seriously. Or you could be funny. But not both ...
That article can also be found at entertainment.timesonline.co.uk.
---
The BBC's Nick Reynolds reflects Edwards's assertion when he writes:
Newman's genius is to turn intelligent thought into simple words and complex, compelling, bitter-sweet American music ... [T]he brilliantly sharp Weill-esque arrangement delivers a real sense of unease underneath all the knockabout ...
He also echoes Bungey's song selections, saying that "Losing You" and "Feels Like Home" "rank among his very best." He calls them
"beautifully crafted, precise and moving. 'Losing You' is two minutes and 16 seconds of wonder: a perfect gem shining in the darkness. Both had me in tears ..."
Read more at bbc.oc.uk.
---
The Observer names Harps and Angels CD of the Week, with reviewer Neil Spencer calling it "hugely likable" and joining in the praise of "Losing You" and "Feels Like Home" as songs that "capture the pathos of Newman's best work." It's also been made CD of the Week by The Independent on Sunday, Mail on Sunday, Metro UK, and Scotland on Sunday, whose Colin Somerville calls the album "a resounding reminder of his right to be considered one of popular music's greatest songwriters." Somerville calls "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" "stupendously good," finds Randy "at his brilliant satirical best" with "Korean Parents," and describes the album's arrangements as "sumptuous beyond Broadway, and as vivid and lush as Hollywood's musical heyday." To read the review, visti scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com.
---
Back in the US, and in Randy's hometown, he is the subject of a feature article in the Los Angeles Times, for which Times staff writer Randy Lewis joined the songwriter on the Santa Monica pier to discuss what Lewis calls Newman's "compelling and varied body of work ..." The writer elaborates:
... Newman has plumbed the depths and shallows of the American psyche with greater consistency than perhaps any of his contemporaries, certainly with more precise musical acumen and lyrical illumination.
To read the article, visit latimes.com.
Reviews are also coming in from across the country. Chicago Tribune music critic Greg Kot calls Randy "one of the most spectacularly irreverent songwriters of the last half-century," and Chicago Sun-Times
reviewer Jim DeRogatis recommends the album, saying that "there's
plenty here to please those who've had to settle for Jon Stewart's
brand of satire in Newman's absence."
The Philadephia Inquirer's
Dan DeLuca calls it "every bit as pointed and barbed as Newman's
patiently waiting fans could have hoped." He points to a few favorites
on the album and sums up the alum as "gloriously, grumpily and
singularly Newman's own." And The Republican, out of Western Massachusetts, gives the album four stars, singling out "A Few Words ..." as "one of the best songs [Randy]'s ever penned" and calling the album "an essential addition to his canon."
---
In other Randy Newman news, David Wild, a longtime Rolling Stone writer, has offered The Huffington Post his expert opinion of the Greatest Song of All Time: "I Think It's Going to Rain Today," which he calls "both devastatingly beautiful and fantastically heartbreaking." Written by Randy in the mid-1960s, the song has been covered by countless performers, from Judy Collin to Joe Cocker, and even with all of those unforgettable versions, writes Wild,
Arguably the ultimate version of the song came from Newman himself—namely, his own fantastically lived-in 2003 recording of the song for The Randy Newman Songbook, Vol. 1. It's just one man singing and accompanying himself at the piano, and it's probably the most powerful and shaded piece of music I could ever imagine.
After also recommending a new version Randy recorded with New Orleans singer Irma Thomas, Wild restates his thesis—"buy it, burn it into your consciousness or risk burning in hell"—and adds a few thoughtful words on the new album as well:
[W]hile you're at it, buy Harps and Angels, Randy Newman's first studio album of new material in nearly a decade. Based on my first few listens, this is one of the best ever albums from the modern musical master who gave us all the greatest song of all-time.
The article can be found at huffingtonpost.com.
- Log in to post comments
