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CD reviews: 1 Kink in catchy album

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Published March 10, 2006 at midnight

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Ray Davies

Other People's Lives, V2 Records

Grade: A

Can Other People's Lives really be Ray Davies' first solo album? Brother Dave has a handful already out and more on the way. With The Kinks, Ray Davies wrote dozens of albums, but none quite like this.

Well-thought-out, combining different sounds and often just taking its own sweet time to make its point, Other People's Lives is an astounding achievement, rivaling Bob Dylan's Love and Theft as a great late-career restatement of everything Davies did well in the past.

Filled with lyrics that are among his sharpest and most introspective and perceptive and combined with liner notes that expand on them, Davies' album is richly littered with attitude, optimism, neuroses, love and angst. It's all set to his catchiest tunes, some distinctly midcareer Kink-y (the character-driven Next Door Neighbour and the very literal All She Wrote, where a lover sends a note to tell the man she's found a new interest: "He's really special / reminds me of you") and some working altogether new musical territory (Things Are Gonna Change, After the Fall).

It's a world-weary album that doesn't sound world-weary at all. The kickoff track, Things Are Gonna Change (The Morning After), takes stock of life's shortcomings and vows that those things won't make a bit of difference in how things turn out from now on. Even in its bleakest moments in songs like After the Fall, it retains a theme of keeping on: "I just had a really bad fall / and this time it was harder to get up than before / I shouted to the heavens and a vision appeared / I cried out, 'Can you help?' it replied 'Not at all.' "

Other People's Lives looks at tabloid journalism and the ubiquity of people's horrendous desire to share their lives on reality TV or the nightly news. "I can't believe what I just read / Excuse me – I just vomited / Tell your story, it's your call / So autobiographical, but oh so trivial."

As a social commentator and a keen observer of the human condition, Davies at times in his career has been without peer. Stand Up Comic manically examines the desire to find the lowest common denominator: "The clown does a belch and we all belch back / and that's that."

Let's hope fans discover this gem. Released Feb. 28, Other People's Lives made its debut low in the Billboard 200 and sank after that. It's off the charts and off the radar, though Davies' U.S. tour planned for this year could revive its fortunes.

Donald Fagen

Morph the Cat, Reprise Records

Grade: B

When asked what the difference was between a Steely Dan album and a Donald Fagen solo album, Fagen and Steely Dan partner Walter Becker were hard-pressed for an answer. Becker appeared on Fagen's last one, Kamakiriad. Fagen appeared on Becker's solo album. The musicians on Fagen's new Morph the Cat mirror the lineup used for the last Steely Dan album.

They fumbled for an answer, but it's pretty obvious. Fagen is more likely to be personal when he's free of the weight of Steely Dan. Unlike the character sketches that populated Everything Must Go, the new disc takes Fagen's own fears - mainly of death - and drops them into nine songs with humor and grace.

If anything, Morph the Cat takes a bit more of a funk bent than usual; Brite Nightgown wouldn't sound out of place on a Prince album, though lyrically, it finds Fagen contemplating several ways that he may die.

Fans may find a little less musical edge than in past releases, but these songs will fit fine alongside Dan songs at the Paramount Theatre this month (and for the not-yet-announced Steely Dan concert at Red Rocks this year).

David Gilmour

On an Island, Sony Music

Grade: B+

Here's another case of "What's the difference?"

Given that it's been 18 years since David Gilmour released a solo album and given that he's ruled out another Pink Floyd album, the take on his new disc is: It's our last chance to hear anything remotely resembling new Floyd.

Being the face, voice and guitar of Pink Floyd (after founder Roger Waters quit in 1983), Gilmour certainly can (and does) re-create that band's classic sound in many parts of the album. And given that it's been nearly two decades since his last solo album, this is probably a last gasp for Floyd fans. To push the similarities even more, he has Floyd keyboard player Rick Wright on board for many of the tracks (and drummer Nick Mason is touring with Waters in Europe, so you can see where the lines are drawn).

The good news is that Gilmour has found his guitar for a good half of these songs. Like The Edge in U2, Gilmour has a style that's instantly recognizable no matter whom he's playing with. The title song sounds like classic Floyd, with David Crosby's and Graham Nash's backing vocals warmly finding a home and harmony with Gilmour's. He should have used them on much more of the album.

Fans will find about half the album to be very Floyd-ish, including Take a Breath and the opening instrumental, Castellorizon.

But Gilmour is interested in exploring other sounds. Even when he's building a song like the blues/jazz This Heaven around Georgie Fame's Hammond organ, his personality comes through in the guitar solo that rides the song out. The gentle acoustic Smile is here after being released on his live DVD four years ago as a tease for the new album.

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