BUDGIE: IF I WERE BRITTANIA I'D WAIVE THE RULES (1976)
1) Anne Neggen; 2) If I Were
Brittania I'd Waive The Rules; 3) You're Opening Doors; 4) Quacktor And Bureaucrats;
5) Sky High Percentage; 6) Heaven Knows Our Name; 7) Black Velvet Stallion.
Budgie's first serious misstep on the road to
oblivion — and what makes matters sadder is realizing that this was not even
an intentional commercial sellout, but rather a confused, uncertain attempt to
branch out and experiment without any clear understanding of where they were
going and why they were going there. Alas, some people are born to make their
mark in many places, but some should rather stick to set formulae. Imagine
AC/DC trying to play James Brown-style funk or Canterbury-style progressive
rock — this is not exactly what
happened to Budgie on this album, but it comes close.
The title track here, for instance, is a real
mess. Opening up with a decent enough metal riff, it quickly dispenses with it
in favor of a light, wimpy funk groove alternating with boring folkish
arpeggios, then eventually slips into disco territory, with Shelley in
full-fledged Studio 54 mode and Bourge previewing the Nile Rodgers style; all
that's missing is some of those disco strings to complete the picture. Not that
there's anything wrong by default
with Budgie playing disco, but this particular section seems to exist only for
the sake of contrast with the opening heavy metal bits — and it's a rather
meaningless contrast, frankly. All the song does is waste a potentially good
pun on a stupid musical synthesis where the individual parts exist only for the
sake of a collective effect, and the collective effect is best described as
"what the..."?
Worse, they are beginning to lose it even when
staying in more familiar territory. ʽAnne Neggenʼ, opening the album, is an
honest rocker, but they probably had so much fun shaping a mondegreen from the
refrain ("and again, and again, and again...") that they not only
forgot to throw in a good riff, but did not even bother to bring the track up
to their esteemed standards of heaviness — Bourge plays almost the entire song
as quietly and cautiously as if he were afraid to wake up the neighbours. In
the past, all of their albums started
out with impressive heavy openers (ʽGutsʼ, ʽBreadfanʼ, ʽIn For The Killʼ, etc.)
that immediately set a sympathetic tone for the entire album; ʽAnne Neggenʼ
immediately sets the wrong tone, as
if we are being introduced to a forced change of musical diet for health
reasons.
As we go further and further, corrections to
these mistakes are not being made.
The ballad ʽYou're Opening Doorsʼ sounds like another preview — to bad
Foreigner. ʽQuacktor And Bureaucratsʼ at least starts out with a thick, distorted
tone for the rhythm guitar, but hopes for something crunchy and snappy are
quickly dissipated as the song proves to be a fairly (sub-)standard baroom
rocker with totally predictable chords and no musical development whatsoever.
ʽSky High Percentageʼ is a generally okay, but unmemorable piece of boogie, and
the second ballad just completely passes me by.
In the end, there is exactly one song worth
salvaging off the album: ʽBlack Velvet Stallionʼ somehow succeeds as an epic
piece despite the melody hanging upon a four note syncopated bass/rhythm guitar
riff throughout, the kind of phrase that tends generally to be used for transitions
from one section of the song to another. However, Shelley manages to inject a
good dose of the old «Budgie sorrow», and Bourge finally gets a chance to
unleash some inventive soloing, going from minimalist, almost ambient mode into
a series of scorching bluesy licks and then building up to an awesomely
climactic coda. What exactly prevented them from featuring the same level of
intensity on all those other songs, I
have no idea.
Usually, when trying to explain such failures,
people pronounce the word «drugs» (which is a great universal key to everything — as we know, both the
greatest music ever and the shittiest
music ever always owe their success/failure to drugs), but I don't even know if
drugs were involved in the first place. More likely, they just said to
themselves at one point, "Hey! We're doing great, but it's all because we
have awesome riffs and guitar solos. Why don't we show them how great we can do
if we toss away the awesome riffs and guitar solos? If we were Brittania, we'd
waive the rules, you know!" I almost hate to be giving this a thumbs down,
because deep down inside, I respect failed experiments, but these failed
experiments aren't even particularly fun to listen to for the sake of
understanding where and how they failed. And one good song out of seven, coming
on as a comforting bonus for your patience, does not count for much.
Sky High Percentage is a good song - it has a fine riff and a pleasant melody. Indeed it's not that heavy a song and hence sounds somewhat poppy, but that's not an unwelcome change to me.
ReplyDeleteBlack Velvet is only that one one pitch riff repeated over and over again. That's not nearly enough for me to call it a good song - certainly not when it lasts eight minutes (as long as War Pigs for instance).
It's best to forget the rest.
At this point I wonder why Budgie never released a live album. It was exactly the right time and with their respectable catalogue the band had every reason to do it. Another second tier English hardrock band, UFO, managed to break through by exactly doing that (Strangers in the Night, 1979). That that band didn't expand on that success is an entirely other story.
Wow, I wasn't expecting a Thumbs Down, maybe a No Thumbs Up. You ranked this a 7 on your old site
ReplyDelete"Imagine AC/DC trying to play James Brown-style funk or Canterbury-style progressive rock".
ReplyDeleteActually Bon Scott did use to sing lead (and, erm, play recorder) in a prog band by the name of Fraternity (along with fellow pub-rocker Jimmy Barnes)... and before that he was in a teen-oriented bubblegum band called The Valentines. No funk though, to my knowledge.
I'd say something about this LP (I do own it) but since I've only played it once & had no desire to again, that probably says enough.
ReplyDeleteDamn, that's a pretty harsh review. I enjoy this album as much as any of the other Bourge-era Budgie albums. I can't see where it's deficient.
ReplyDelete