Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Post Info TOPIC: V Deep - reviews


Drag Me Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 345
Date:
V Deep - reviews
Permalink  
 


I'm getting on a review-writing kick for BG/BTR stuff. So here's my review of V Deep (remastered version) - any and all opinions of this album are welcome in terms of favorite/least favorite songs, comparing it to other albums, etc... He Watches It All one of the prettier-sounding tracks from the album. I love the refrain; Geldof's vocals mixed with Fingers' outstanding piano work and the background whimsicality of Crowe's drums and the guitars is all well blended and lovely. The lyrics are decent. The only thing that's weak about the song is the diddy near the end where Geldof just "huh"s for at least 8 bars...we get it, let's move on. Nevertheless, it's one of my three favorite tracks here... Never In A Million Years Another ear-pleasing tune Yeah, the lyrics are really clichee, but they work well with the very dramatic music and energy of the song. It's nice to hear Bob take on some vocal novels, I love his work in the song, and the harmonization (with Crowe?) is tight and pretty. Also, his (synthetically?) drawn out high "years"word/note is cool, I love it when bob sings high notes hehe. I really enjoy the four moving notes between "I tear down the sky" and "Don't stop now," so lovely. The second of my three favorites from the album. Talking In Code Not bad, not amazing. It sounded like the Rats didn't spend too much time developing this one. The beginning is annoying with all the strange radio sounds. The drumbeat is cool, moves the song along even up to the drawn-out ending. It's decent sounding because it's in a minor key but a little boring. The ending is weak, the lyrics are so-so. The Bitter End errrr...a 'lame' tune all around. Annoying, kinda whiney/weak vocals, boring tune. The lyrics are OK , has that gloomy edge to them, but the rest of the track is not too great. The Little Death My least favorite track. Weak vocals, stupid music. I'm not a huge jazz fan and this song continues to drag the album along very slowly. Let's pick up the pace here... A Storm Breaks mkay, gettin back up to tempo a bit...again, nice drum work from Crowe, not necessarily great vocal work from him though, kinda annoying and out of place. Geldof is very bored-sounding and boring to my ears vocally. C'mon, exercise those vocal cords, I know you have a wide range of pitches! Oh, and the 'ice cold' thing goes on unnecessarily long. Clichee lyrics. Just an ok track like Talking in Code. This one's also a little underdeveloped. Up All Night Wow can Bob whine. It works here though, with the slowish tempo and kinda psychadellic overall sound to the song. I really love the "say it ain't so, Joe" verses, a pleasant break from the rest of the trance of a song. Backing vocals sound kinda bored, and if this song were a little speedier in tempo I think it'd be better. Unwitty lyrics but a decent track. House on Fire Mellow, nice to 'chill out' to, but extremely repetitive and doesn't go much of anywhere. This whole album has a lot of repetition in its tracks, actually. I really don't like the lyrics, too cartoony or something. Tarzan, come on. The horns are a little overbearing and not very pretty. Just ok... Charmed Lives Clancy was right when he said how out of tune this track was, in vocals and instrumentals! Bob is effortlessly belting out random crap lyrics - and not effortless in a good way, but in a 'let's get this song done and overwith' way. It's just a buncha sh!t tossed in a mixing bowl, visciously beaten and ground up, and splatted all over the kitchen. Still not as bad as The Little Death though. Skin on Skin ahhh, I love it. Wrote about this song somewhere else but I'll review it again. My favorite track here. I love love love the tempo, drumbeat, keyboard sound, song key, and vocals. It's really a cool song in my opinion. Now I think Bob is doing all the singing here but I'm not sure, Simon could be chipping in with the higher stuff ('nothing more nor less than...I wanna lick the sweat off,' etc.). Either way, ah I love the tune! That's really all I can say. The only thing I don't like is the whole verse where Bob just basically mumbles his way through (starting with 'London stops and everything's sweet'). Most of the lyrics I like and work well with the song's theme, with some exceptions that are just kinda off-putting ('rotten feet,' 'smell the stink of'). Good song, my last of my three favorites. Say Hi To Mick Kinda pretty, kinda tight vocal work, kinda boring, kinda Simon & Garfunkel sounding (again, like Clancy said...I agree completely!), kinda just ok. Random lyrics. No Hiding Place I think this would've been a better song if the Rats worked a little harder to tighten it up. It sounds like it's gonna fall apart every minute that clashes and bangs by. It's interesting, I like Fingers' work, but the band's not together as a whole. The alley-noise parts are annoying and adds to the sloppiness of the track. House On Fire - extended umm...no. A waste of CD space and my time to listen to. I got it with the original version, I don't need it to go on for ever and ever. The video that this song birthed was wretched, boring, frustrating, and pissed me off. I wanted to see the Rats (esp. Bob), not a bunch of random footage of their trip to India or wherever they were. oh God and the ending, 3 or so minutes of a BLACK SCREEN, wow thanks. Bad length for this song, horrible video. Up All Night - extended For some odd reason, this one's not really annoying, even though the tempo (which I had a problem with in the original version) is slower. Just ok. This album, as of now, is my second to least favorite (which is Mongo Bongo) of the BTR albums. The Rats sounded lazy here and almost bummed out, which is understandable since they were kinda on the downslide in popularity. Amazing that In the Long Grass was so superb following the previous two albums. It's not horrible, I still like it a lot better than most of Bob's solo stuff, and there are a few beautiful tracks here. It's a pretty easy and unembarassing listen.

-- Edited by MMbullybuddyGP at 00:10, 2005-04-26

-- Edited by Tina McBain at 16:34, 2005-10-04

__________________


Drag Me Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 320
Date:
RE: reviews
Permalink  
 


ok...I'll reply! as I like both reviewing and replying...
V Deep isn't a favorite at all, but I disagree on a few things...(and agree on others....)

Never in a million years sounds like it was written to be a hit, that's never, or very rarely, a good thing..however, it is quite good. Bob's vocals, and those high notes are great, with, as you point out the whole I tear down the sky thing..
I can agree on talking in code being "Not bad, not amazing"
BUT! "The Little Death My least favorite track. Weak vocals, stupid music. I'm not a huge jazz fan and this song continues to drag the album along very slowly. Let's pick up the pace here..." WHAT!
no, no, no.... I'm not a big jazzfan either, but this one, I love..just read these lines :

"She reach for the sky
But the sky turn black
She hanging by her nails
but her knuckles just cracked
She said, "It's strange but nice to have no
future or past
If you can't stand the heat
you just turn up the gas"
I nod as if I know she can't say I haven't tried
Cos she hasn't lived until she's died"
Isn't that amazing?
For a jazzsong the music isn't that good, but it's ok...as you might have noticed I fell for the lyrics mainly...

as a whole this album is very mediocre...
skin on skin, which is brilliantly arranged, and the little death are highlights... also, House on fire is a feel-good song for me, not as good as the above though....

have to defend little death don't I.... is there anyone else here who actually likes it?

__________________


Drag Me Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 345
Date:
Permalink  
 

all right, you caught me there, as I said nothing about Little Death's lyrics! I meant to look them up but I think that's the one song I said nothing about lyrically. you're right, they're fine, there's nothing I dislike about 'em, but ... the rest of the song's contributes are so boring/poor that not even the lyrics can save my negative opinion of the song.

same thing I said 'bout Room 19, I can't stand that song so much that even amazing lyrics wouldn't make me like it much more.

but thanks, you pointed out an aspect I didn't even consider with the song, and I have no problem with debates/disagreements in opinions...makes for good discussions

__________________


Drag Me Down

Status: Offline
Posts: 320
Date:
Permalink  
 

ha...well, as I said, I'm not crazy about the music of the little death, but the lyrics...oh, yes..they work for me
room 19, well...the lyrics are better than the music, but I don't dislike it enough to never listen to it...it's one of the first songs from Bob's solowork I ever heard, didn't like it much then, but it's the kind of song the grows on you...

ha...well, there aren't many good discussions here anyway, is there? :-/



__________________


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2631
Date:
RE: V Deep - reviews
Permalink  
 


I put this in the car for a long business drive the other day, turned the mobile off and gave it a full airing. The review here is pretty spot on I would say. I think Skin on Skin would have made a great single. I've often read it was considered too risquee but with what Frankie released a year later, Marvin Gaye's 'Sexual healing', no end of sultry hits from Donna Summer in the late '70s and with Olivia Newton John proclaiming in her '80s hit 'Physical' that 'I took you to an intimate restaurant, then to a suggestive movie, there's nothing left to talk about unless it's horizontally' - just how much of a risk would the already 'controversial' Rats have been taking with this at the time?

The Starland Vocal Band may have wrapped a similar theme up into a more sugary 'Afternoon Delight package, but 6 years on, hadn't we all grown up a bit and would the earth really have stopped, as we panned from Boy George to another BG and his cohorts in the spring of '82 with this gem?



__________________


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2821
Date:
Permalink  
 

Mark L wrote:

I put this in the car for a long business drive the other day, turned the mobile off and gave it a full airing. The review here is pretty spot on I would say. I think Skin on Skin would have made a great single. I've often read it was considered too risquee but with what Frankie released a year later, Marvin Gaye's 'Sexual healing', no end of sultry hits from Donna Summer in the late '70s and with Olivia Newton John proclaiming in her '80s hit 'Physical' that 'I took you to an intimate restaurant, then to a suggestive movie, there's nothing left to talk about unless it's horizontally' - just how much of a risk would the already 'controversial' Rats have been taking with this at the time?

The Starland Vocal Band may have wrapped a similar theme up into a more sugary 'Afternoon Delight package, but 6 years on, hadn't we all grown up a bit and would the earth really have stopped, as we panned from Boy George to another BG and his cohorts in the spring of '82 with this gem?


 Afternoon Delight reminds me a bit of that old Carry On Up The Khyber movie with Sid James(Sir Sydney Ruff Diamond lol) always up  for a spot of afternoon tiffin. Maybe thats how the Empire was lost!

I though Cadburys had stopped making Tiffin but just checking it seems to be still around. Just like Curly Wurlys.Hurray.



-- Edited by noelindublin on Tuesday 4th of September 2012 02:32:09 PM

__________________


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2631
Date:
Permalink  
 

It does have that Carry On feel to it, doesn't it?!

I think though with SOS, say with the 'London stops' bit shortened a little, this could have made more impact on the charts than Million Years and House on Fire. Certainly, these were good singles but whoever chose Charmed Lives as single 3 from V Deep, made a mistake and SOS would have been a much better choice. I always remember a DJ on ILR playing Charmed Lives in the summer of '82 and saying 'OMG....what have they have gone and done etc' and there was a short phone-in debating how such a successful group had 'lost their way so badly'.

I wonder how feasible it might have been to keep interest up in '83, say going back to Mondo Bongo, which of course had only spawned 2 singles and putting out a 3rd single from it, say Go man Go or rereleasing Elephant's Graveyard?

Geldof repeatedly said through much of '82 and '83 he would rerelease NIAMY, and when that happened it was as a b side to the 4th single from In The Long Grass and I somehow sometimes felt that was not really keeping the promise.

 

 

 

 



__________________


Back To Boomtown

Status: Offline
Posts: 7207
Date:
Permalink  
 

Mark L wrote:

I always remember a DJ on ILR playing Charmed Lives in the summer of '82 and saying 'OMG....what have they have gone and done etc' and there was a short phone-in debating how such a successful group had 'lost their way so badly'.

...

I wonder how feasible it might have been to keep interest up in '83, say going back to Mondo Bongo


 Watching the BBC 4 programme on the Undertones last night, I was surprised to find out they had a fourth LP, and listening to the songs broadcast, they lost their way pretty badly at that point.

Arguably V Deep was Mondo Part II.  Up All Night and House on Fire were recorded before, and it wouldn't surprise me if there were other songs that had been recorded for Mondo Bongo.

If a single opportunity was missed in the UK, it was Up All Night.  The video was regularly on MTV US, and it was in the club charts.  Had anyone at Mercury had any sense they would have released it as a 12" super single between Mondo and V Deep, even if all it did was give the Rats some airplay.

As disasterous as Charmed Lives was, the damage had been done with Million Years.  With Up All Night and House on Fire as singles which would probably have both been top twenty with more dance orientated mixes, V Deep may have been a bit more successful.



__________________

 What is this bloke talking about? 


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2821
Date:
Permalink  
 

Perhaps the bands biggest mistake was releasing Charmed Lives as a single rather than Up All Night. Up All Night resonates more with the club scene so might have been a club hit back in the early eighties, rather than a lame song about bad hair days and having nothing much to do(even if it was meant in an ironic way).

I always wonder who chose Charmed Lives as a single. Was it a choice by the band, the record company or what? After the failure of Million  Years a  quick remedy was needed, but Charmed Lives was not the answer and only House On Fire saw any relatively lowly chart action, by the Rats previous high placings. I always find Charmed Lives a bit of a 'shaggy dog' song, in that I can't hate it, but in the overall scheme of things it was perhaps a shaggy dogs  dinner of a song.

Just out of interest what if the band and the record company and even individual band members all differ in what should be a single. How does that work out?



__________________


In the Long Grass

Status: Offline
Posts: 1902
Date:
Permalink  
 

Do find myself also agreeing with pretty much everything in the review. Talking in Code as a track grew on me tremendously after their live variation of it (bit like Hurt Hurts did from previous for same reason). Would probably have been a little more positive about He Watches it All; good build/layering to the track, good break in the middle, and interesting (if impenetrable) lyrics. Might have been more damning of Charmed Lives too. Irritating for too many reasons.

Skin on Skin was a standout track from first hearing and clearly a better option for 45 than Charmed Lives. I've always thought Bob was trying to keep with the times on V Deep and pursuing more of a jazz funk feel. Skin on Skin is where he gets closest, with a good tune to boot. 

Re: choice of singles - can't believe the band were getting too much say on anything by this stage, or it was falling on deaf ears. My money's on Bob plus some suit in the company who thought they were capturing spirit of 82, whilst forgetting to check if the song was half decent or had any hook.

Funnily enough I thought Never in A Million Years was a similar story, with a far stronger song in my view. It compares favourably with things like Vienna, or Souvenir, or numerous other synthy songs from the time, but no one could quite believe Rats were doing it so they were failed miserably. Not a new band to be lauded, just an old band making radical changes that lost old fans and didn't find new. Could have been a hit for some up and coming trendies I'd venture. 

Up All Night would have been more credible for Rats. Happened to watch this on YouTube fairly recently and there are loads of recent comments, obviously from people younger than the song, saying what a cool track. Seems to be featured on some contemporary show in the States by look of it, and half the comments say they only tune in for the song. Quite amusing to see how many say the guy singing looks like Pink (from the film obviously, not the feisty blond songstress smile).

Which pretty much leads me back to my precis of V Deep - continued identity crisis.

 



__________________


Back To Boomtown

Status: Offline
Posts: 7207
Date:
Permalink  
 

suss wrote:

Would probably have been a little more positive about He Watches it All; good build/layering to the track, good break in the middle, and interesting (if impenetrable) lyrics.

Re: choice of singles - can't believe the band were getting too much say on anything by this stage, or it was falling on deaf ears. My money's on Bob plus some suit in the company who thought they were capturing spirit of 82, whilst forgetting to check if the song was half decent or had any hook.

Which pretty much leads me back to my precis of V Deep - continued identity crisis.


He Watches It All is absolutely brilliant.  I wouldn't have it down as a single, but when I first heard V Deep, it was such a standout.  The only pity was they didn't match the high standard it set elsewhere.

The choice of singles post Banana Republic until Dave was puzzling.  Go Man Go sounded far more of a single than Guilty, yet wasn't released as one in the UK. Charmed Lives was never a single whereas Up All Night was, and Tonight wasn't the best lead single from In The Long Grass.  It's almost as if they didn't want a hit. 

Mondo Bongo and V Deep could be both defined as an identity crisis.  Visconti wasn't the ideal producer as he happy to indulge Geldof's whims, and Geldof didn't really have any focus nor vision.  Even with Vegetarians of Love, it was only latterly decided to go whole sale cajun/celtic pretty late in the day.

 

http://www.hotpress.com/music/interviews/Another-Side-Of-Bob-Geldof--/415822.html  A very good article.  A cut-price Irish Bowie!  indeed



__________________

 What is this bloke talking about? 


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2631
Date:
Permalink  
 

ArrGee wrote:

The choice of singles post Banana Republic until Dave was puzzling.  Go Man Go sounded far more of a single than Guilty, yet wasn't released as one in the UK. Charmed Lives was never a single whereas Up All Night was, and Tonight wasn't the best lead single from In The Long Grass.  It's almost as if they didn't want a hit. 

Mondo Bongo and V Deep could be both defined as an identity crisis.  Visconti wasn't the ideal producer as he happy to indulge Geldof's whims, and Geldof didn't really have any focus nor vision.  Even with Vegetarians of Love, it was only latterly decided to go whole sale cajun/celtic pretty late in the day.

 


 Agree with all of the above, except thought Guilty was a brilliant 2nd single, GMG would have made a good third single and should not have been restricted to Ireland. Guilty was oddly truncated with last verse left out. Third verse nicely rounds off the view on the riots, effects on OAPs & the misapplication of justice. Clever Costello-esque stuff with a humorous video.



__________________


Loudmouth

Status: Offline
Posts: 2631
Date:
Permalink  
 

House on Fire on ILR in Lancashire today in 'School Days' when '82 was the featured year and the Rats got an airing alongside predictable '82 fodder like ABC, Human League, Dexys, OMD and Haircut 100.

Cue old jokes: What song do you get if you add graceful white waterfowl to romance: Love plus swan

and what group do you get when Andre Previn is doing the vacuuming with the lights off: Orchestral Man hoovers in the dark

 

 



__________________
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.

Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse
Powered by ActiveBoard