 |
Genius: Best of Warren Zevon
On the evidence of this 22-track career overview, it's tempting to call Warren Zevon's oeuvre a monument of pop-music dichotomy. But that assessment would sorely shortchange Zevon's vast catalog of contradictions: the sentimental songwriter ("Hasten Down the Wind") with a nihilistic heart of darkness who makes the likes of Jello Biafra seem more like Raffi by comparison; the shrewd, successful tunesmith nonetheless laboring in service of vintage psycho-whack like "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner," "Excitable Boy," and "Werewolves of London"; a man who consorted with Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, and R.E.M. ("Boom Boom Mancini") and yet who still cheated the devil of his soul; a satirist with the keen eye of a marksman--or Randy Newman, for that matter--who somehow let his own demise get the jump on him, despite having written prescient jollities like "Mr. Bad Example" and Life'll Kill Ya. In short, Zevon walked it like he talked it, peril be damned. If he felt like turning in a straight-up take of the R&B chestnut "A Certain Girl," or lumbering inexplicably through Prince's "Raspberry Beret," only then to turn on a dime and indulge his classical pretenses on "Mutineer" and "Genius," so be it. Zevon just couldn't help himself from living up to this album's modest title. --Jerry McCulley
Buy
Tracks| 1 | Poor, Poor Pitiful Me | | 2 | The French Inhaler | | 3 | Carmelita | | 4 | Hasten Down the Wind | | 5 | Werewolves of London | | 6 | Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner | | 7 | Excitable Boy | | 8 | Lawyers, Guns and Money | | 9 | Interlude No.1/Play It All Night Long | | 10 | A Certain Girl | | 11 | Looking for the Next Best Thing | | 12 | Detox Mansion | | 13 | Reconsider Me | | 14 | Boom Boom Mancini | | 15 | Splendid Isolation | | 16 | Raspberry Beret - Warren Zevon, Prince | | 17 | Searching for a Heart | | 18 | Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead | | 19 | Mr. Bad Example | | 20 | Mutineer | | 21 | I Was in the House When the House Burned Down | | 22 | Genius |
Copyright © 2009 NetVision. All Rights Reserved. Privacy Statement
|
