BRIAN ENO: WRONG WAY UP (w. John Cale) (1990)
1) Lay My Love; 2) One Word;
3) In The Backroom; 4) Empty Frame; 5) Cordoba; 6) Spinning Away; 7) Footsteps;
8) Been There Done That; 9) Come In The Desert; 10) The River; 11) You Don't
Miss Your Water*; 12) Palanquin*.
With Thursday
Afternoon behind his belt, Brian Eno unofficially changed his name to Brian
EnoUGH, and focused primarily on installations and all sorts of musical
carpentry — so when he came back in 1990 with his next proper «musical» album,
that part of the world for whom the name still mattered was probably quite
shocked to learn that (a) not only would it be a collaboration with John Cale,
another giant from the past, but (b) it would also be a pop album — Eno's first pop album in thirteen years, to be correct.
And if anything, as you listen to the opening
electronic-syncopated rhythms of ʽLay My Loveʼ that opens the record, it's like
those thirteen years never happened. Maybe the keyboard tones are a little
different, since, clearly, Eno uses a different set of sound-generating gizmos
in 1990 than he did in 1977, but the basic style of the song is not one inch
different from Eno's basic style on Before
And After Science, or, for that matter, Here Come The Warm Jets. Not one! Just the same combination of
catchy melodicity, warm friendly vocals, tense rhythmics, and overall weirdness
that used to make those records so accessible and so inimitable at the same
time.
Behind all the joy there are problems, however.
One is that, although all but one songs are jointly credited to Cale and Eno, Wrong Way Up does not sound like much of
a collaboration. When you had Eno and Cluster, or Eno and Budd, or even Eno and
Byrne, it was rather easy to spot the individual talents and tell who's
contributing what, and it all added up to all sorts of exciting combinations
of vibes. This record, in comparison, feels like half-Eno, half-Cale, and even
if technically Cale probably plays keyboards, strings, and horns on some
(all?) of the Eno songs and vice versa, the other guy is always being low-key
while the first guy is singing and flashing his personality. So you have the
Eno part (ʽLay My Loveʼ, ʽOne Wordʼ, ʽEmpty Frameʼ, ʽBeen There Done Thatʼ,
etc.) and the somewhat smaller Cale part (ʽIn The Backroomʼ, ʽCordobaʼ, ʽFootstepsʼ,
etc.), and they're quite different: Brian is still largely the friendly guy
with a grin, Cale is still that second-gloomiest guy from the Velvet
Underground after, you know... the first-gloomiest guy. The two personalities
do not mesh that well.
Of course, they are not necessarily supposed
to: Wrong Way Up could run on
contrast rather than coherence. But this is where the second problem knocks on
the door, and that is — these songs are not that good, honestly. After the
first pangs of pleasure at the familiar sight and sweet memories triggered by
ʽLay My Loveʼ are over, you begin to realize that the song is neither as fresh
nor as tightly gripping as anything Eno did in the 1970s, even if the looped
string riff is kinda cute and uplifting. This is just too much of a «let's go
back there and see what we can do with the same old ingredients again» spirit to allow me to rate the
song on the same level as ʽNeedle In The Camel's Eyeʼ or ʽNo One Receivingʼ, if
you get my drift. It's a nice song, but it just doesn't — has no intention to —
stick around all that long.
They even selected one of the songs here for a
single, and it even charted in the States: ʽBeen There Done Thatʼ is a New
Wave-stylized pop hopper that nicks its verse melody from Paul McCartney's
ʽJunior Farmʼ (isn't that actually weirder than anything else on here?), is
fairly infectious while it's on, but in the end just sounds like any
medium-quality New Wave pop hit produced in the late 1970s or the early 1980s.
Again, it's all fair, but it's Eno-lite, no surprises, all smoothness and
nostalgia and, if you pardon the expression here, not a lot of soul. And then
ʽThe Riverʼ sounds nice, but it is essentially fashioned in the mode of an old
country-pop tune, something of a cross between the darkness of Johnny Cash and
the sweetness of Ricky Nelson. I can understand Brian wanting to write and
record something like that, but surely he could have no illusions that this (rather than, say, ʽBy This Riverʼ) is something that he
would be remembered by long after Johnny Cash, Ricky Nelson, and his truly have
given that unpredictable trio performance at Live Aid: A Benefit Concert For The
Children Of Limbo, organized and sponsored by the Archangel Committee.
I must say that, in a way, I actually prefer
the «purely Cale» slices on here — apparently, he was in some sort of Spanish
phase here, so ʽIn The Backroomʼ is a moody Mexican tale with castanet overdubs
and echoey guitars and violins, and ʽCordobaʼ is a subtly haunting minimalistic
ballad about... nothing in particular; it tries to conjure a little bit of puzzling
mysticism out of thin air and generally fails, but at least the attempt is
worthwhile. In other words, whatever John is doing here does not simply seem
like a stab at recapturing and repackaging old glories — Eno, on the other
hand, can almost literally be seen hopping with a butterfly net after that
elusive «spirit of 1977», and it is just a little odd for such a respectable
gentleman to be seen hopping around.
Since none of the songs are decidedly bad, a thumbs up
is still in order: the disappointed tone of the review is explained primarily
by context — with those almost impossible quality standards that Eno's pop
albums were setting in the mid-1970s, you could predict that any «comeback»
like this would be a disappointment, but you'd still secretly hope for another grand slam. Still, let us look at the
good sides, too — for instance, they pay no attention whatsoever to the actual
pop trends of the time, bent completely on doing their own schtick by their own
standards. And, as is usual with Eno, there are no attempts at
self-aggrandizing or putting on Elder Statesman clothes or anything like that —
aside from the usual cryptic lyrics that may or may not hold the key to the
meaning of life, it's all quite unpretentious. And catchy, and well-produced,
and enjoyable; but as for replay value — only for big fans of both artists, I'd
say.
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