Cat Stevens (Yusuf): The Laughing Apple

CAT STEVENS (YUSUF): THE LAUGHING APPLE (2017)

1) Blackness Of The Night; 2) See What Love Did To Me; 3) The Laughing Apple; 4) Olive Hill; 5) Grandsons; 6) Mighty Peace; 7) Mary And The Little Lamb; 8) You Can Do (Whatever)!; 9) Northern Wind (Death Of Billy The Kid); 10) Don't Blame Them; 11) I'm So Sleepy.

At this rate, I guess, if Cat-Yusuf lives to be a hundred, his last albums will consist exclusively of re-recordings of his old catalog. The Laughing Apple not only takes its title from one of the songs on New Masters, but it actually presents no less than four songs off that record in new arrangements. We do remember that Cat never really appreciated Mike Hurst's production of his first two albums, and took the first chance he could to get himself rid of the 1967 baroque posh­ness of the arrangements; so this move may at once represent an understandable pull of nostalgia for one's youth and a desire to set things right, if at all possible.

The problem is, New Masters was not a great album by itself, and the arrangements were not that bad — listening to the new versions back-to-back with the old ones mainly just reminds me of how much Cat-Yusuf's voice has aged after all, although, to be fair, on ʽNorthern Windʼ he goes down and deep quite intentionally, so that the song's atmosphere could be changed from youthful romanticism to experienced wisdom. In another case — that of the title track — he replaces the old Morricone-style orches­tral arrangement with a long-awaited mid-Eastern arrangement, and now the old parable may be taken for a piece of Sufi wisdom. But ʽBlackness Of The Nightʼ is basically just the old song without strings, so if the idea of a small chunk of New Masters Naked actively appeals to you... well, here you go.

I regard it as more of a symbolic gesture — the old man coming full circle and offering an elderly take on the sentiments of his youth — and, naturally, am more interested in whether he still has anything new left to say. Well... not really. In a way, this is a retread from the darkness and tension of Tell 'Em I'm Gone, back to the placated comfort zone of Roadsinger: the first origi­nal song, ʽSee What Love Did To Meʼ, is a soft country-rocker where we learn that the protago­nist used to be "a blindfolded bumblebee", and "now I see what God did for me / He made me see life flowery", from which we can conclude that the protagonist is still a bumblebee, but no longer blindfolded and capable of clearly seeing everything he might be sucking on... oh, hang on, we got sort of sidetracked here, wrong direction.

Back on target: almost everything else is a bunch of pleasant folk and country ballads, very nice in terms of texture and atmosphere, but gliding past you on wings of butter and cream, so softly and smoothly that there is barely anything specific to catch your attention. At this point, the lyrics are consistently more interesting than the music: ʽGrandsonsʼ, for instance, states that "I've got a thing about seeing my grandson grow old", with a strange and hardly predictable desire to stay on and witness the wonders of technological progress ("I just can't wait to see that city on the moon", actually a fairly reasonable sentiment for 1967 but hardly for 2017), while its acoustic melody does not come across as memorable. ʽMary And The Little Lambʼ is musically just that, but lyrically, Yusuf adds an extra twist to the story to tighten the bonds between Mary and the lamb even tighter — too tight, one might say if one took the words "they'll be loving a long long time from now" too literally, but... hang on, wrong direction again.

Anyway, I think it is best to just take The Laughing Apple as a children's album — you know, like one of those that he'd done for the kids in order to educate them about the ways of the Pro­phet, but more musical and without any specific religious indoctrination this time. I can easily imagine a toddler cuddling up to its soft, simple charms, and eventually drifting to sleep as the record appropriately concludes with a re-recording of ʽI'm So Sleepyʼ. Perhaps that was precisely the goal — to make a simple, unassuming, childish album; peaceful, loving, and cozy. Sometimes such records might feature great songwriting, too, but Cat-Yusuf is no longer interested in great songwriting, because striving for greatness would prevent him from carrying out his debt of humi­lity. Unfortunately, this means that The Laughing Apple cannot get any active endorsement from me; but as a mild spiritual sedative, it just might work.

Cat Stevens: Tell 'Em I'm Gone

CAT STEVENS: TELL 'EM I'M GONE (2014)

1) I Was Raised In Babylon; 2) Big Boss Man; 3) Dying To Live; 4) You Are My Sunshine; 5) Editing Floor Blues; 6) Cat & The Dog Trap; 7) Gold Digger; 8) The Devil Came From Kansas; 9) Tell 'Em I'm Gone; 10) Doors.

There's not a lot of original material on Yusuf's third Allah-circumventing musical offering — just five new songs — but this time, instead of reworking his own back catalog, he falls back upon a selection of oldies, both from the early rock and the pre-rock era. The idea, as can easily be seen, is to make an old-timey, rootsy, dark and foreboding record that would establish a direct link to Cat-Yusuf from people like Blind Willie Johnson and Leadbelly, with a mix of gloomy «this world is forever trapped in sin» pessimism and cheery «there must be a better place out there somewhere» optimism.

It must be said, though, that the album leans very heavily to the gloomy side of things, its optimism largely coming in a few patches of sunlight, most important­ly on the anthemic conclusion of ʽDoorsʼ. This is distinctly different from the attitude of the last two records, which had their shares of sorrow and melancholy, but, as I already indicated, largely relied on a new-found serenity and tranquillity that comes with old age and (in Yusuf's case at least) with alleged religi­ous enlightenment. All of a sudden, things have changed, though, and the old man resumes a series of laments and complaints that are far more turbulent and even vicious than anything he'd done on An Other Cup and Roadsinger. The only thing I can ascribe this change to is Stevens' getting out into the limelight once again — as he resumed touring, public speaking, and inter­acting with the musical industry and the media sharks, his temper must have been provoked far more frequently than it used to ever since 1978, and Tell 'Em I'm Gone finds the man... well, not exactly snapping, but clearly in a pissed-off mood.

Which, at least, makes the record more fun than Roadsinger. Once again, there is hardly any musical experimentation here, and even the subtle lyrical and atmospheric references to Islamic themes are all but gone — formally, because it is hard to invoke the spirits of Leadbelly and the Prophet at the same time, but substantially, because you do not really have to refer to the tenets of Muslim faith in order to rant and rave about a world gone bad. ʽI Was Raised In Babylonʼ is quite a telling title for the first song on the album: even though the lyrics refer to the actual historical Babylon, taking it as an approximate start for human civilization (and finishing the last verse with, appropriately, a reference to "the Empire on which the sun sat never"), the title by itself gives you Baby­lon as a symbol, and implies that the more it changes, the more it stays the same. This whole record is about Babylon and the harshness of life in it.

To further draw you in with the intrigue, Stevens invites no less than Richard Thompson himself to guest on that first track — you will clearly discern that it is not just Stevens handling the acoustic guitars, but that there's a hand of one real master of the instrument in there somewhere, and all of Richard's fans need this track in their collection: he adds some gorgeous color to the main melody, both with some naughty, flashy arpeggios and tortured «dying dog» string bends that convey a strange mix of sadness and coziness. Beyond that, producer Rick Rubin adds odd sound effects and ghostly harmonies (provided by Tinariwen, a Tuareg band from Mali) that give the track a bit of an otherworldly feel — while at the same time leaving the vocals and guitars safe and sound. It's a quirky arrangement, and it sets a good tone for everything that follows, even if nothing that follows probably lives up what pre­cedes it, and not just because Richard Thompson has left the building.

Some of these covers just do not work that well. The surprising choice of Jimmy Reed's ʽBig Boss Manʼ is not even as surprising as the decision to arrange it in a swamp-country-rock fashion, with quietly gritty guitars, shrill harmonicas, and frisky tempos — at least Elvis made it punkish, but this combination simply does not click, because, heck, it's a good soundtrack for whacking alligators down on the bayou, and where the hell do you find big boss men in the bayou? In the same way, the decision to turn ʽYou Are My Sunshineʼ into a gloomy blues-rocker, with grumbly faraway keyboard comets passing over murky guitar jungles, is weird and misguided: the song does nothing good in this tonality, as much as we'd appreciate a healthy musical oxymoron.

Others are more successful: Procol Harum's ʽThe Devil Came From Kansasʼ (a song that Stevens probably remembered well back from his youth — Salty Dog came out in 1969, right as he was convalescing from tuberculosis) is an energetic performance on which Yusuf is backed by Bonnie ʽPrinceʼ Billy and his band, including even a thick, distorted, psychedelic guitar solo from Matt Sweeney; and Edgar Winter's ʽDying To Liveʼ, a potentially gorgeous ballad in its original incar­nation, finally gets a soft, subtle, touching interpretation instead of the overwrought oh-so-blue-eyed-soul of the original. But the real reason why they work is that Stevens is capitalizing on the songs' initial strength, rather than trying to deconstruct them into something they cannot possibly be — suggesting that, at this point, his powers as humble interpreter might be superior to the ones he tries to show as unpredictable creator.

Because the original songs are hit-and-miss, too, the low point being ʽEditing Floor Bluesʼ, a long rant that he begins to the melody of Marvin Gaye's ʽBaby Don't You Do Itʼ and finishes with that of Muddy's ʽRolling Stoneʼ — all the while complaining about the goddamn media and their distortion of the truth (fake news, fake news)! Honestly, it's a tedious experience — repetitive, not very powerful, not too hard rocking (despite all the low-pitched distorted riffage), and coming across as way too whiny for somebody who's allegedly found inner peace more than thirty years ago. I much prefer something like ʽCat & The Dog Trapʼ, a serene, stable ballad that warns pre­cisely against things like that — getting too excited, and making a fool of yourself in the process. The downside is that such a song is also much less memorable.

For all the ups and downs, I am glad that he decided to put out something this «turbulent»: at the very least, it shows that even at this advancing age, Cat-Yusuf is not interested in putting out carbon copies of the same record all over again, but neither is he interested in following trends and fashions just for the sake of it (otherwise, we'd probably be knee-deep in Islamic dubstep by now). This particular stab at the oldies and their injection with the Cat Stevens spirit (most bla­tantly illustrated with the title track, which simply adds new lyrics to the old folk standard ʽTake This Hammerʼ) is uneven and hardly likely to make much of an impression — but hey, if Bob Dylan can do it, why not old Yusuf?..

Cat Stevens: Roadsinger

CAT STEVENS (YUSUF ISLAM): ROADSINGER (2009)

1) Welcome Home; 2) Thinking 'Bout You; 3) Everytime I Dream; 4) The Rain; 5) World O' Darkness; 6) Be What You Must; 7) This Glass World; 8) Roadsinger; 9) All Kinds Of Roses; 10) Dream On (Until...); 11) Shamsia.

Perhaps Yusuf thought he'd gone too far in the «flashy» direction with his return to the world of big neon lights; in any case, the follow-up to his comeback is significantly more low-key, retur­ning us to stripped-down times when it used to be just Cat and his acoustic guitar, and everything else was strictly secondary. We still have strings, and rhythm sections, and backing vocals, and even horns on occasion, but they never drown out the basics — and he further accentuates this with the album title and cover, implying that, when all is said and done, Cat-Yusuf is essentially a wise old street busker, and only those few intelligent souls whose instincts are attuned to the words of the wise will bother to stop and listen for a few minutes — for the rest, these sounds will simply blend in with the background noise.

I regret to say that on this occasion, I have not properly managed to ascend to the status of the chosen few. While the material here is definitely comparable with the «average» Cat Stevens balladry of the classic years, nothing has either the immediately captivating nature of ʽMiddayʼ or the curiously experimental nature of ʽThe Belovedʼ or the «odd factor» of ʽDon't Let Me Be Misunderstoodʼ. The nature of most of the songs is still calm and pensive rather than turbulent, which is good, because this serenity and peacefulness seems to come very naturally to the aging Cat-Yusuf these days; but unless you are able to slip into the state of a little kid cuddling up on his grandfather's knee and taking in the words of wisdom, or, perhaps, unless you are a grand­father yourself, it will not be easy to assign the record to any specially marked shelf in your memory closet.

The record is very clearly structured around the lyrics this time — little parables or allegories, occasionally confessions, heavily influenced by Arabic and Persian religious and literary tradi­tions, but, ultimately, with relatively simple morals: the central point of the opening number, ʽWelcome Homeʼ, is that "time rolls on, ain't no good to sit and moan", but musically, well, the song could have been written by anybody — probably was, a couple dozen times already — and so, unless you find consolation in the subtle and exclusive magic of the minimalistic slide guitar overdubs, there is nothing but Cat-Yusuf's intangible charisma to feed your pleasure centers. And it's not as if he's lost any of it (inshaʼallah, his voice is pretty much immune to the ravages of time), but it's not as if all those years of religious devotion made it all that more mesmerizing, either. More calm and peaceful he may be, aye, but the «Majikat» stays the same.

Actually, as fun as it is to drop an occasional chuckle about Yusuf's Islam, the idea of putting together the basics of British medieval folk / piano pop and African-American acoustic blues, then cross them with elements of Arabic music and insert some second-hand Sufi wisdom sounds pretty cool; what surprises me is that Roadsinger has way too much Cat Stevens and way too little Yusuf Islam to make a difference — and what surprises me even more is feeling that this is a flaw of Roadsinger, not a virtue. For instance, ʽWorld O' Darknessʼ, dedicated to the fate of Shamsia Husseini, a girl nearly blinded by Taliban goons for attending school in Kandahar, is technically a dark medieval-stylized ballad (with a fairly bad, Eighties-adult-contemporary key­board solo at the end) — with no Eastern musical elements in sight, sympathetic in tone but simply not too interesting in composition or execution. (For that matter, a return to the same theme in the guise of ʽShamsiaʼ, a brief instrumental to close the album, is more curious — a tiny chamber piece with romantic strings adorning Cat's piano — but also totally a Western thing).

Then again, it's okay. After all these years, we see that Cat Stevens is really the same ʽRoadsin­gerʼ that he used to be — aw hell, maybe his embracing of the Qur'anic way of life was just an excuse to skip the Eighties (I, for one, am very much glad that we never got to have a 1986 Cat Stevens album), and then only those 60s/70s stars who did make their 80s albums had to atone for this by making something better in the 90s. And here we have him now, just making more of those acoustic ditties about being completely lonely (title track), always misunderstood (ʽEverytime I Dreamʼ), and still hopelessly romantic at heart (ʽThinking 'Bout Youʼ). He just seems to accept this peacefully now, rather than complaining about it, implying that religion and old age do not make your problems away — you just learn to live with them. Not an amazingly mind-blowing lesson, but at least it is delivered in a non-obnoxious way.

Cat Stevens (Yusuf): An Other Cup

CAT STEVENS (YUSUF): AN OTHER CUP (2006)

1) Midday (Avoid City After Dark); 2) Heaven / Where True Love Goes; 3) Maybe There's A World; 4) One Day At A Time; 5) When Butterflies Leave; 6) In The End; 7) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood; 8) I Think I See The Light; 9) Whispers From A Spiritual Garden; 10) The Beloved; 11) Green Fields, Golden Sands.

Yusuf Islam first went back to record-making in 1995; however, for a long time his records were purely religious affairs, mostly oriented at children and using spoken-word or poetry tracks with minimal musical accompaniment (percussion) that taught the little ones about the main principles of the Islamic faith, about the various accomplishments of the Prophet, and about the basics of suicide bombing (okay, not really, bad bad joke). We will not be discussing these records here; this is something you can do with your local imam or mullah.

However, by the time century 21 began rolling along, Yusuf apparently felt the urge to return to real music — and not just to begin writing songs again (something that he had still been doing on occasion during his years of retirement from the public eye), but to actually reboot his musical career. Whatever was the true reason behind that, we might never know, and «The Artist For­merly Known As Cat Stevens» might not understand it perfectly well himself, but considering that one major factor behind his quitting was a deep hatred of the music business, exacerbated by his religious conversion, it is possible that he — like many other people — eventually saw the situation in the 21st century, with its numerous indie labels and possibilities of making professio­nal recordings without the mediation of greedy music business bastards, as liberating. Besides, it seems that his son was constantly nagging him about getting back to music, and there's nothing like a whiny 21-year old kid with musical interests of his own to make your Dad real jealous.

Yusuf Islam went about it the smart way, though — thirty years of direct conversations with Allah are no laughing matter, after all. He set up his own record label, «Ya Records» (regular distribution was still handled by Polydor and Atlantic); credited the album to «Yusuf» rather than «Yusuf Islam» so as not to repulse or provoke Muslim haters (particularly those Muslim haters who are too ignorant to understand where the name Yusuf comes from); largely avoided direct references to his faith in most of the songs (although mid-Eastern motives may be found in some of the music, and Islamic symbolism is frequently detected in some of the lyrics); and actively promoted the album with a string of TV and concert appearances, pleasantly surprising audiences by the apparent lack of a kuffiyeh on his head.

The most pleasant surprise, however, was that he'd made some nice music. It would be unwise to expect that An Other Cup would consist of ardent religious preaching: other than a few uncom­fortable and somewhat ill-interpreted comments on Salman Rushdie, Cat-Yusuf had done nothing in those past decades that would permit to describe him as a militaristic zealot, nor was there any indication that, like Dylan in 1979, he'd embraced his new religion more with an idea to confuse and bewilder his followers than anything else. On the other hand, considering how inconsistent his music-making was in the Seventies and for how long he was not involved in music-making at all after that, how could our expectations be high for this comeback? My guess was: a few acous­tic-based sermons, parables, and allegories, delivered gently, peacefully, and in an instantly for­gettable fashion from a kind, friendly, and washed-out grandfather.

And it is a very pleasant surprise when, after such expectations, the very first song proves you wrong: ʽMidday (Avoid City After Dark)ʼ is, indeed, a gently and peacefully delivered acoustic-and-piano-based allegory, but it is anything but forgettable — a simple, but catchy pop song with very well-placed brass interludes (where the brass part actually fulfills the function of the chorus) and a brilliant mix of friendliness and sadness, every bit as affecting as anything the man had done earlier. To add to the surprise, Cat-Yusuf's voice has not aged one bit — in fact, it has only become more smooth and silky, closer in tone to the early Cat Stevens of 1967 than to the mid-Seventies rough-'n'-edgy Cat Stevens. And, in a way, I am more fond of this calm and serene Cat Stevens than the perturbed and hystrionic Cat Stevens of the mid-Seventies: now that he has alle­gedly found peace and is simply enjoying his ride on that train, he seems to have found a better balance between his inner spirituality and his musical arrangements (which, let's face it, had been quite timid and inadequate to reflect his inner turmoil, and frequently made me suspect that the turmoil itself was nowhere near as grand as he tried to picture it with his words and voice).

Somewhat disappointingly, ʽMiddayʼ turns out to be the highest point of the new album, as none of the other songs are as instantaneously memorable. But it sets the right vibe that is preserved for the entire record, ensuring that at worst, it sounds pleasant, inoffensive, and wise; and at best, the songs slowly grow on you, because Stevens has not lost his taste for cautious experimentation. Unfortunately, the most experimental of these numbers is ʽThe Belovedʼ, the only song on the album that is directly related to his faith — a hymn of adulation for The Prophet ("his mercy stretched from East to West / to every man, woman and child" — not quite what even the tradi­tional ahadith tell us, but at least for Cat-Yusuf, it's always about a peaceful message), inter­woven with mid-Eastern musical themes and vocalizing in a somewhat predictable manner. But on the other songs, he still continues to look for pleasant sonic combos, utilizing a large array of acoustic instruments — in fact, I think I prefer this remake of ʽI Think I See The Lightʼ from Mona Bone Jakon over the original, which was almost all piano; here, there is more tension created by the acoustic bass, and the organ doubling the piano adds more depth, while the newly added jazzy brass-heavy coda completes the song with a «glorious-epic» flourish.

It is less clear why he decided to revive the "heaven must've programmed you" bit from the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ, merging it with a new song (ʽWhere True Love Goesʼ), but I guess that anyone in Cat-Yusuf's place would have been tempted to insert a few self-referential pointers after thirty years of retirement. Another gesture that must have had a special meaning for him was covering ʽDon't Let Me Be Misunderstoodʼ — Cat-Yusuf, as you can easily see by perusing his website, is extremely sensitive to people forming various misconceptions about him (like, his daughters do wear the hijab — TRUE; he does not converse with women who do not — FALSE), and this dramatic, heavily baroque-orchestrated reading of the song is quite touching.

I would not go as far as to say that Cat-Yusuf has truly attained the state of one of those Sufi sages who, with their presence and devotion, may command respect even on the part of the staun­chest atheists. But on the whole, An Other Cup paints a very satisfactory portrait of somebody who has found internal happiness and peace with himself (not without occasional quirks), yet is not striving to jump out of his skin so as to show the world just how precisely happy he is (in con­trast to the old Cat, who was always jumping out of his skin so as to show the world just how precisely disturbed and unhappy he was). I expected to hear something either very boring or very irritating here — and got such a big surprise that I am even willing to forget some of the weaker ballads, and go along with a thumbs up. I'm sure even Mr. Salman Rushdie himself couldn't have anything personal against a friendly record like this — provided he did not know who the artist was, of course.

Cat Stevens: Majikat - Earth Tour 1976

CAT STEVENS: MAJIKAT: EARTH TOUR (1976/2004)

1) Wild World; 2) The Wind; 3) Moonshadow; 4) Where Do The Children Play; 5) Another Saturday Night; 6) Hard Headed Woman; 7) King Of Trees; 8) C79; 9) Lady D'Arbanville; 10) Banapple Gas; 11) Majik Of Majiks; 12) Tuesday's Dead; 13) Oh Very Young; 14) How Can I Tell You; 15) The Hurt; 16) Sad Lisa; 17) Two Fine People; 18) Fill My Eyes; 19) Father & Son; 20) Peace Train.

During his pre-Islamic times, Cat Stevens never tried releasing a live album, nor did his record label put any pressure on him in that respect — it was well known that, although performing as such was not a major burden for him (after all, so many of his songs simply scream to be accep­ted by a friendly audience), touring was, and that he always saved his creativity, if not necessarily energy, for the studio sessions. Still, tour he did, on a regular basis, and just a couple years before he finally made a proper return to the world of music, one of the shows from his 1976 tour of North America surfaced as an official CD and DVD release — I have a bit of trouble understan­ding where and when precisely it was recorded (Williamsburg, Virginia is listed as the location in some sources), but that would be a useless piece of trivia anyway, since we may safely presume that Cat's shows did not vary too much.

In all honesty, Majikat is an album that can only be recommended to completists. Stevens treats his concerts as loyally performed duties — the setlist, as can be easily seen, does not even con­centrate all that much on the album he would be supposed to promote at the time (Numbers), but is blatantly skewed in the direction of his hit singles, as well as massively popular songs that happened to avoid single releases (ʽWhere Do The Children Playʼ, etc.). The arrangements of these songs, in turn, remain loyal to the studio versions — to the point that even the song lengths of the originals and the live versions sometimes match second-for-second. Where they do differ, the new versions are usually inferior, because, for instance, Stevens does not have a string section onstage, and has to either omit the original parts or replace them with synthesizers, neither of which is a happy option, especially if you cannot find any way to compensate.

He is loyal, for sure: the setlist is good (although his decision to wipe Matthew & Son out of his memory is not something I can agree with), and all the performances are tight and heartfelt; in fact, Stevens gradually shakes himself up into what would probably count as a shamanistic state for him, sometimes losing control over his voice for the sake of heating up extra passion. If he were in a band like The Who or Jethro Tull, that would add to the excitement of a great rock'n'roll performance; unfortunately, with his acoustic guitar and piano, and a backing band that has to respect the soft-rock conventions of the originals, this is not to be, and ultimately all that extra energy does not add much to the already familiar experience.

As a consolatory bonus, you get some banter towards the end (starting with ʽSad Lisaʼ, he begins to provide brief revelatory, self-ironic, and/or humorous comments to each new song) to help turn this into your own personal fireside rendez-vous with soon-to-be Yusuf Islam. You also get his cover of Sam Cooke's ʽAnother Saturday Nightʼ (a big non-LP hit single), which is cute but can­not hope to surpass the original. And then there's always the DVD — Cat looks real good in white, and hey, far be it from me to deny that he was quite handsome in his prime, but whether his stage presence will mesmerize you is a question left wide open. (I, personally, find myself bored fairly quickly at having to constantly try to peer through the Spiritually Closed Eyes). All in all, it is good to have this historical document — every decent artist needs to be remembered in connection with his audience — but I doubt that even big fans will find themselves regularly re­visiting this CD (the DVD might be another matter).

Cat Stevens: Back To Earth

CAT STEVENS: BACK TO EARTH (1978)

1) Just Another Night; 2) Daytime; 3) Bad Brakes; 4) Randy; 5) The Artist; 6) Last Love Song; 7) Nascimento; 8) Father; 9) New York Times; 10) Never.

On July 4, 1978, precisely at the moment that this humble (and thoroughly Godless) reviewer was turning two, Steven Georgiou officially changed his name to Cat St... that is, I mean, Yusuf Islam — because Yusuf happened to be his favorite Quranic character (I presume that young Steven had never read the Book of Genesis), and Islam happened to be his favorite religion, way more cool than Numerology even. After his newly discovered brothers in the faith convinced him that the career of a pop musician was spiritually incompatible with Allah, he took the decision to quit, but not before releasing one final album, because he still owed one to A&M records, and Allah is pretty strict and straightforward on the issue of paying debts, even ones owed in pop music cur­rency. Hence Back To Earth, a somewhat oddly titled, but perfectly valid record that puts a full stop to Stevens' musical career in the 20th century.

Given the circumstances, it would be unreasonable to expect a masterpiece, yet the album does not exactly sound like a throwaway, either. There is still some mild experimentation, a couple of instrumentals that exploit some new ideas, and, most importantly, there is no explicit feeling that the artist no longer gives a damn about whatever it is he is doing, which is curious considering that the album is totally not pro-Islamic: the closest thing to a religious anthem here is ʽFatherʼ, and even that one seems to be alternately addressed to God and to his real father, who ended up dying on the exact same day that the album was released. As it is, the album is neither too happy nor too sad, and if you were simply to judge by the quality and atmosphere of the songs alone, you'd probably never guess about the revolutionary changes that took place in Stevens' religious, moral, and everyday life in 1978.

On a relative scale, I would place the album below most of the classics, but, like, Izitso, above the meanderings of his 1972-1975 period. The country-tinged opener, ʽJust Another Nightʼ, is graced with a simple, but warmly touching piano riff and a classy, though unfortunately subdued, steel guitar part from Brian Cole; its lyrical theme, a thinly veiled letter of recognition and con­tempt to Mrs. Music Industry, is hardly new, but it is nice to observe how neither the words nor the intonations, let alone the gentle melody, harbor any demonstrative hatred. ʽLast Love Songʼ, according to Stevens himself, dealt with the critical backlash against his conversion — with another love metaphor, but a less interesting piano melody that is more suitable for a power ballad than a humble confession; nevertheless, the woodwind-imitating synth solo is a curious find, and the song never really crosses into power ballad territory from the threshold.

For the singles, Stevens chose the most hard-rocking track on the album (ʽBad Brakesʼ — more like Bad Company, to be honest, than Cat Stevens!) and a sentimental ballad, ʽRandyʼ, that sounds like a Phil Collins / Bernie Taupin collaboration and was probably released to confuse the audience: a gay love anthem from somebody who had just embraced one of the strictest anti-gay religions in the world? There'd be much more to discuss if the song were good, but, unfortunately, it isn't: too many sappy strings and a lazy coda that regurgitates clichéd ballad chord sequences. Once again, while the album as a whole still holds up as an artistic statement, the singles seem to be relatively shallow and boring creations, given an «objectively» commercial coating so that the label could get off Stevens' back.

At the same time, a track like ʽDaytimeʼ, with its careful mix of electric and acoustic pianos, acoustic guitars, and saxes, despite formally lacking the "Randy, oh my Randy" type of hook, produces a much better atmospheric impression; and ʽFatherʼ is acutely funky, with attractively grim interplay between bass and electric guitar that conveys a better sense of tension than just about anything Cat had done in the previous several years. Of the instrumentals, ʽThe Artistʼ is just a pretty way to spend two minutes in an elevator, but ʽNascimentoʼ, a collaboration with the horn section of Tower Of Power, is another experiment in jazz-rock, although this time with a strong disco flavor — the tune would probably never work on its own, and it is certainly nowhere near as futuristic as ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ, but it is still exciting, in a way, to hear the man engage in this strange passion at a time when body-oriented dance music should have officially been the smallest possible of all his concerns.

For the last paragraph of his musical testament, Stevens chose an ambiguous strategy again, writing another mixed-feeling letter to the world he was leaving behind: ʽNeverʼ may not be one of his best songs (not least because it lifts a key chord sequence from George Harrison's ʽBeware Of Darknessʼ to serve as the song's main melodic hook), but it is a suitably clever testament that still leaves him a way out ("I know there'll be another time... there's going to be another story") even as the door is closing shut. At least the man said his goodbyes in a quiet, humble, and polite manner, instead of giving us some overblown anthem or a goodbye-cruel-world style bitter curse. Then again, what else could you really expect?

Critical reaction to Back On Earth was predictably poor, because pop music industry usually does not take lightly to its idols choosing a religious path (and usually for good reason, might I add sacrilegiously); however, if the songs are to be judged on their own merit, without the accom­panying knowledge, I do not see what it is that would make this a particularly worse record than just about anything post-Tillerman — other than, perhaps, the subpar singles, but it's not like this was completely unprecedented for Cat, either. It is no Abbey Road, for sure: Stevens never went out on a limb to produce a sweeping musical testament for the ages, but then, he'd always been humble by nature, and his conversion should only have multiplied that humility. Yet when you put it under a microscope, it is very clearly a career-closing statement, and thus, an indispensable listen for all those interested in the spiritual and musical evolution of Britain's deepest soft-rocker... or was that Britain's softest deep-rocker? Whatever. After 1978 it all became irrelevant anyway — goodbye, Cat Stevens, hello, Yusuf Islam and his 50,000 edutainment records for little Muslim children.

Cat Stevens: Izitso

CAT STEVENS: IZITSO (1977)

1) (Remember The Days Of The) Old Schoolyard; 2) Life; 3) Killin' Time; 4) Kypros; 5) Bonfire; 6) (I Never Wanted) To Be A Star; 7) Crazy; 8) Sweet Jamaica; 9) Was Dog A Doughnut?; 10) Child For A Day.

After Numbers had failed to chart (apparently, the magic of numerology cannot influence the number of sold copies), A&M Records allegedly freaked out and demanded that their resident hit writer produce something commercially viable. By early 1977, Cat seems to have already em­barked on the path that would soon bring him to Allah, but there was as of yet no thought of abandoning the music business — so he not only complied to the label's demands, but also put some thought and effort in the creation of the record, balancing his truth-seeking singer-songwri­ter persona with an almost surprisingly prescient quest for musical innovation.

Recorded with a small army of session musicians, Izitso goes heavier on synthesizers than ever before, but not because of their trendiness — Stevens tries to peek into the future here, and he might even be significantly influenced by some of the decade's pioneers of the electronic sound. Two of the tracks are completely instrumental and completely different from each other: ʽKyprosʼ is like a Greek folk song redone with drum machines and electronics (in a most attractive way, since Cat uses a whole array of devices and timbres to imitate pianos, strings, and woodwinds), whereas ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ is an interesting early example of an electropop number: funky, jerky, robotic — you could probably break-dance to this tune and never know it was Cat Stevens in the first place. Some people were totally not prepared to hear this kind of material from Cat, and even today still accuse him of messing around with stuff he does not truly understand, but I think he does the robotic vibe fairly well — though, admittedly, I have a hard time picturing him b-boying to this soundtrack. Hello Cat Stevens, IDM pioneer!

The majority of this record is still about the soul, though, not the body. The long-awaited hit single, ʽThe Old Schoolyardʼ, was also dominated by synthesizers, but its main theme, delivered by Cat in a duet with Elkie Brooks, is nostalgic: I think he was going for a sort of ʽDon't Go Breaking My Heartʼ success story here, but with the song's stuttering rhythms, lack of an imme­diately memorable chorus, and somewhat fussy production, it could never hope for the same acclaim and it did not get one, only charting at #33, a slight improvement over ʽBanapple Gasʼ but nowhere near the level of his major past successes. The second single, ʽSweet Jamaicaʼ, did not chart at all — with its overwhelming string arrangements, it seemed poised at the soft-dance-pop market that certainly needed no Cat Stevens to liven it up in 1977. Frankly speaking, it is a pretty bad song, and the fact that all of its lyrics are on the level of "You're my world as far as I'm concerned", it can be easily deduced that this was an intentional throwaway, offered by Stevens to the label as a false appeasement while he was busy working on something more interesting. (Even ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ, when released as a single, ended up charting higher).

What was probably not intended as a throwaway is the album's second worst song, ʽ(I Never Wanted) To Be A Starʼ, whose title is self-explanatory and whose lyrics are filled with self-quo­tations and acute disdain for "parties avec les bourgeois", at a fairly flat level of imagery and wordplay, not supported by a well-fleshed out melody, either. You'd think that a man as wise as Mr. Georgiou could have calmed down on this issue, particularly at a time when his religious quest was nearing its final moment of triumph, but perhaps he had a bad lunch with an A&M representative or something, so now you have to sit through this three-minute rant as the man explains that "I only wanted to run my own race / So I could win a small place in your heart". At least we can assume he's not lying about it — but the song is still quite poor.

In case you suspect an anti-Stevens bias here, let me quickly turn the conversation towards a song that is not at all poor: ʽChild For A Dayʼ is probably his finest conclusion for a song cycle since at least ʽPeace Trainʼ. It is a fairly formulaic country-soul number, but it just has everything going for it: good lyrics, good combination of piano and organ, clever build-up towards the chorus, supportive backing vocals, restrained, but powerful guitar solo, pretty mix of soft wah-wah and slide guitars for the coda. And it also offers a healthy conservative contrast with the wild futurism of ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ — so that the album only seems to get stronger and stronger as it approaches the grand finale.

The rest of the songs I am not too certain about (still trying to understand, for instance, if the unusually heavy funk of ʽKillin' Timeʼ is a cool or an awful idea), but even with what there is, Izitso deserves a thumbs up — its experimental bits are more self-assured and make more sense than the ones on Numbers, and its soulful bits, with the exception of ʽTo Be A Starʼ, are once again set to creative musical ideas. Most importantly, you can see how he is willing to modernize his soft-rock sound, but only under the condition of staying in complete control. He did employ a hip young producer, David Kershenbaum, to help him with all the funky bits and the synthesizers, but other than ʽDoughnutʼ, not a single track here could be suspected of being an authentic and full-fledged Kershenbaum creation — and I have no qualms about ʽDoughnutʼ.

Cat Stevens: Numbers

CAT STEVENS: NUMBERS (1975)

1) Whistlestar; 2) Novim's Nightmare; 3) Majik Of Majiks; 4) Drywood; 5) Banapple Gas; 6) Land O' Free Love & Goodbye; 7) Jzero; 8) Home; 9) Monad's Anthem.

Around this time, Stevens got particularly fascinated with numerology — just another one of his turns — and decided to try his hand at conceptuality once again, writing a mini-rock opera that would somehow revolve around numbers. The story that he invented was never fully explicated, but partially made it to the album's liner notes and partially to the lyrics. You can read about it in more details in a variety of sources, starting with Wikipedia, but honestly, I wouldn't pay it too much attention, unless you have pledged to accept Cat Stevens as an intellectual beacon rather than a musician. In fact, this was probably how it went in 1975: Numbers was routinely ridiculed as an embarrassingly pretentious conceptual disaster — the critics hated it because it once again made a strange jerk in the direction of prog-rock, and the fans were left befuddled because it offered neither pop hooks nor easily accessible spiritual enlightenment.

Once again, though, I have to play a controversial role here: throwing overboard all the sci-fi fluff about planets populated by Pythagorean concepts, I see a record that returns Cat Stevens to the world of music-making, easily his most focused effort since Tea For The Tillerman, well worth revisiting by those who expected another set of soulful folk ditties, but got something far more experimental instead. True, the jazzy and funky elements that are all over the record remain a bit alien to Stevens' nature, but, as he did on Foreigner, he is capable of enhancing the melodic aspect of groove-based music to compensate for the lack of energy. And he is really all over the place, trying to find a different face for each of the nine tracks — sometimes successfully, some­times controversially, but who cares? After the preachy disaster of Buddha, the man suddenly remembered that he used to be a composer, and that's enough for me.

Now, meet the harbinger of disaster: ʽBanapple Gasʼ, the only single from the album and one of the most commonly hated Stevens songs, according to my observations. Putting it out as a single was probably a mistake — it is intentionally slight, yet fully adequate to its sarcastic purpose, mock­ing the self-delusional state of society with a happy country-meets-Caribbean pop song that would not have sounded out of place on an Osmonds record, or in a soda commercial. In the overall context of the album, it is clearly parodic, though it also fulfills the important function of offering a light breather in between the heavier stuff. Funny, catchy, but obviously fluffy and about as suitable for the role of a lead single as, say, ʽHoney Pieʼ would be for The Beatles. On the other hand, it is one of the few tracks whose lyrics are more or less autonomous and allow it to be sampled outside of the concept, so perhaps that was the driving motivation. Or maybe, in the era of Main Course and KC & The Sunshine Band, Stevens — or his record company — thought it was dance time, even for spiritual singer-songwriters. Who knows?

In a perfect universe, the lead single should have been ʽMajik Of Majiksʼ, one of the man's most complex and interesting musical creations since the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ. The composition effort­lessly flows from slow piano ballad to a proto-disco dance groove, sharp strings and all, and is also embellished by David Sanborn's sax parts (apparently, Stevens did not turn a deaf ear to Bowie's Young Americans, either). Unlike ʽBanapple Gasʼ, this one has no vocal hooks, but it's not as if Stevens had never released a hookless single before — and it does know how to build up and release tension, with lead and background vocals and strings and saxes working as a perfect team. Besides, it can also be viewed outside of context: essentially, the lyrics are talking about a meeting with a supernatural being that leads the singer to an epiphany — hopefully, Cat was really stoned when he wrote that. Not all that convoluted.

Elsewhere, the record fluctuates between soft jazz (the opening instrumental ʽWhistlestarʼ, a very nice theme with real whistling and somewhat soundtrackish, but memorable piano phrases from Jean Roussel, Cat's trusty sidekick); orchestrated medieval dark folk (ʽNovim's Nightmareʼ); and the usual folk-pop formula (ʽHomeʼ). It is not a tremendous amount of variety, but then the album, like all Cat Stevens albums, is also quite short — although still not free of some tedious filler tracks (ʽDrywoodʼ tries too hard and too long to put out a harsh blues-rock vibe, but lacks that special something — like a Sanborn sax solo — to properly ignite); and the pompous choral conclusion, ʽMonad's Anthemʼ, where, I assume, it is explained that all the naughty numbers are really one, lays on the chorus effects too thickly, abusing the talents of the «Magic Children Of Ottawa» (whoever they are) without getting anywhere. At least the Stones knew that a full-scale symphonic choir on one of their songs (ʽYou Can't Always Get What You Wantʼ) could only work as an introduction; Stevens decided that it would make a fine two-minute conclusion to the album, and in the process, turned it into some young adult vaudeville show.

Still, the best thing about Numbers is that the conceptuality of the project, instead of harming the music, seems to have positively influenced it — you can toss the concept for all you want, the best songs on this album work perfectly fine without it, and the worst ones would never have worked with it anyway. I will not go as far in my controversy as to openly recommend it, what with all its flaws and inconsistencies, but it was a major step in the right direction, and who knows? had the public and the critics truly embraced it, maybe today's Yusuf Islam could have ended up being Pythagorid McBoole instead, and spent the rest of his days collaborating with Count Von Count on educational activities for children. Then again, it is unlikely that Stevens' spiritual path could ever depend that much on mass opinion.

Cat Stevens: Buddha And The Chocolate Box

CAT STEVENS: BUDDHA AND THE CHOCOLATE BOX (1974)

1) Music; 2) Oh Very Young; 3) Sun/C79; 4) Ghost Town; 5) Jesus; 6) Ready; 7) King Of Trees; 8) A Bad Penny; 9) Home In The Sky.

Almost as if he suddenly woke up and became terrified at what 1973 did to his ego, Stevens hur­riedly backtracks — and ends up with a far more predictable, but just as problematic sequel to Catch Bull At Four. Paul Samwell-Smith is back in the producer's seat, the trusty old band with Alun Davies at the forefront is restored, and Jamaica is abandoned in favor of good old London. We are also back to the custom of weird album titles: this one, apparently, is due to Cat finding himself traveling on an airplane with a statuette of Buddha in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other, and implies being caught in a gap between the spiritual and the material. Although, it might be argued, the real Buddha would just wince back at him and ask, hey Cat, are you sure you can truly tell one from the other?

The main problem is that he got so busy telling one from the other, he hardly even noticed that he'd come out with one of his weakest albums to date. By this time, he'd graduated to Mr. Spiri­tual Incarnate, and where his records from the early 1970s could qualify as bold anti-commercial artistic statements (ironically, they sold pretty well), this record is largely a collection of sermons where the man frankly does not give a damn about anything else — be it catchy pop hooks or challenging chord sequences. He may have gone back to shorter songs, but at least the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ was not so utterly loaded with pretense as these tunes, where he comes forward as some master guru — and, let me add, without truly deserving it. In fact, this is the first record to contain Cat Stevens songs that I openly consider detestable.

Fortunately, that opinion does not concern the album's only single and Cat's last big original hit, before his commercial fortune abandoned him completely: ʽOh Very Youngʼ, sometimes called Stevens' response to ʽAmerican Pieʼ (since it also takes Buddy Holly as its pivot character), is a short and harmless acoustic ballad that implicitly suggests God might be a big fan of ʽWords Of Loveʼ (well, not exactly, but you can read the lyrics that way if you wish to). The preachiness is present here, too, but at least it has a decently written chorus; that said, I can certainly think of some better songs written by James Taylor, and that thought alone makes me shiver.

But almost everything else is simply dreadful: raw, poorly slapped together melodies that Cat tries to fatten up with ecstatic arrangements and vocal deliveries that suggest spiritual enlighten­ment, but ring hollow. ʽMusicʼ is a gospel-rock construct where Stevens tries going black once again, and the results are pitiful when viewed in context. ʽJesusʼ sounds like he's talking to the little kids again, so let us keep this one for the kindergarten hour. (As a sidenote, I will mention that the subject matter of the song — the unity of all religions — is the same as in George Harri­son's ʽLife Itselfʼ; the difference between the two is that Harrison fully redeems himself with the brilliant melodic lines in the opening thirty seconds of the song, a short, but beautiful guitar journey that is fifty times as spiritual as any of the words these guys come up with).

Worst of the lot is ʽKing Of Treesʼ, an eco-anthem that drags on for five minutes without any­thing interesting going on — the only thing that is supposed to attract attention is the tension and worry in the singer's voice as he violently and vehemently protests against cutting down trees, laying down the roads, and, I suppose, also against putting up the cozy Sound Techniques Studios where the album was recorded. Again, it is not the naïve, but admittedly sincere nature-loving lyrics that are embarrassing (although I would say that Joni Mitchell's ʽBig Yellow Taxiʼ at least has more original imagery): it is the fact — okay, the suspicion — that the song was quickly thrown together around the lyrics, not the other way around. And ultimately, all the talents of Joanne, Judy, Sunny, Ruby, Barry, Joy, Brigette, Suzanne, Jacqui, and other family-deprived singers recruited by Cat to give him gospel choir support go to waste.

I will not even try to discuss the rest of the songs. Melody-wise, even after four listens to this short collection of songs I cannot remember any of them. Lyrics-wise, they go from ecological rants to odes of salvation to condemnations of socialites (ʽA Bad Pennyʼ) that do not mean any­thing unless they are being put to good music. Perhaps the only exception is the lightweight ʽGhost Townʼ, a bit of harmonica and slide-driven country-rock used by Cat as an excuse to name some of his deceased favorites, from Chico & Harpo all the way down to Anne Boleyn. But it is clearly a throwaway, although it certainly does not offend me the way ʽKing Of Treesʼ does with its puffed-up seriousness.

Bottomline is: this time around, the man honestly does not even try. He used to fiddle about with odd combinations of folk melodies and Latin rhythms, dabble in medieval balladry, translate his verses into Latin, send cryptic messages that were a chore to decode, but here he just says to hell with it, assembles himself a gospel choir and presumes that as long as he preaches peace, love, and humility, this should be enough for anybody who is ready to follow. Well guess what? In this context, I definitely choose the chocolate box over Buddha. Thumbs down.

Cat Stevens: Foreigner

CAT STEVENS: FOREIGNER (1973)

1) Foreigner Suite; 2) The Hurt; 3) How Many Times; 4) Later; 5) 100 I Dream.

The funny thing about this album is that Cat Stevens really had no intention of making it look like a prog rock effort — by all accounts, he was getting deeper into soul and R&B and had decided that his next record would be closer to his black influences than his white ones. In order to make a clean start (something that was further aided by the usual necessity of a British musical resident to go into tax exile), he moved to Brazil, then to Jamaica, got himself a completely new team of musicians, and produced the record himself. All of this, he believed, would pull him out of the pop star rut and open him to unlimited possibilities.

A big problem, however, stems from the simple fact that Cat Stevens ain't black, nor does he have any of those musical qualities that make the best of black music so irresistible. Foreigner, named that way with a certain degree of self-irony, tries to tame funky rhythms and generate a soulful atmosphere, but every time it does, it very quickly beomes obvious just how uncomfortable and struggling Stevens is with the material. Every time a potentially decent groove appears here, it is being treated with the same polite, fragile reverence as you can see on, say, a mid-period Chicago album: the music is simply too quiet and sterile, with Cat's passion-burning vocals always the most, if not the only, active ingredient of any given song. He might be trying all right, but I'd rather prefer he didn't — it is one thing to ascribe the disappointing effect of a record to acciden­tal laziness, and quite another thing to inavoidable impotence.

The progressive rock connotations are, of course, due to the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ that occupies the entire first side of the album — honestly, though, it seems to be that long simply because Stevens got carried away at some point, and not because he was looking up to the achievements of Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, or Jethro Tull. It certainly does not start out like your typical prog rock suite: no introduction whatsoever, as Cat jumps into vocal action immediately, with a soul­ful "There are no words I can use!..." declaration that already has his heart on his sleeve, without much fuss or preparation. Of course, he then goes on to use plenty of words — but also plenty of music, since ʽForeigner Suiteʼ is his most complex musical endeavor to date. The song goes through numerous sections, none of which, unfortunately, happen to be particularly memorable: Cat plays a lot of keyboard parts, sometimes in ballad format, sometimes in funky dance mode, but the ballad parts are mushy and the funky dance parts are flimsy, and, most importantly, the entire suite is emotionally monotonous — whether he is kicking up the rhythm or laying on the piano tenderness, ʽForeigner Suiteʼ is just an 18-minute long serenade, and it runs a serious risk of getting on your nerves by the time we get around to the artist's major logical conclusion: "Heaven must've programmed you!" (had the suite penetrated radio waves just four years later, Steve Jobs might have scooped up the rights to use this in an Apple II commercial).

Honestly, at certain times during the suite I start getting an uneasy feeling of being exposed to Springsteen-lite — the impression is that Stevens is trying to unleash the fervor and the fury, but has neither the internal nor the external means to do this like a real Boss. Even when the soulful parts of the suite are upheld by strings and angelic female harmonies, everything is politely held back, and only Cat's voice is allowed to soar, Otis Redding-fashion... except he ain't no Otis Redding, and pure soulfulness and sincerity that is not backed by power and technique has no chance of standing competition. The only thing that ultimately saves ʽForeigner Suiteʼ from being a complete embarrassment is the sheer amount of work that went into the composition — with blues, pop, jazz, and gospel influences all around the place, it is quite an ambitious piece indeed, despite the unfortunate lack of memorable themes or powerful culminations.

The second side, despite being mercifully divided into four distinct parts, still continues the line of the suite — soulful love anthems, for the most part, spearheaded by ʽThe Hurtʼ, another obvious tribute to the soul masters that Stevens put out as the single. But while the public still loved him enough to put the LP on the charts, it was clear that ʽThe Hurtʼ on its own lacked com­mercial power, being utterly hookless and completely dependent on the conviction power of the singer's voice; and, honestly, there is nothing said with this song that had not already been said much better by... well, Marvin Gaye, for instance.

The only song on that second side that has something at least vaguely reminiscent of a hook is the semi-sinister funk groove ʽLaterʼ, with wah-wah guitars and ominous strings creating a sort of «blaxploitation vibe», even if the actual hook, centered around a particularly threatening "later!" coming from both Cat and his backup assistants, is a bit weird (why does he want to create such a threatening aura around the perspective of having sex with his loved one after he's had a chance to "talk it out with you"? how come, after all these years of Gallant Stevens, we are suddenly treated to an out-of-the-blue round of Macho Stevens?). And, of course, there is no resisting ending the album on a preachy note, with a more traditional Cat Stevens folk-rocker (ʽ100 I Dreamʼ) telling us to pick up the pieces, not let our weaknesses destroy us, "and in this way you will awake" because, apparently, at the present time we all happen to be dreaming. Well, no shit, man, you happened to be seriously instrumental in putting us all to sleep this time around.

I give the record a thumbs down — despite appreciating the wish to experiment and do some­thing different, this is simply not the kind of direction that it made any sense to choose, and it is good that the experiment was not repeated. Oh well, it could have been worse: what with that stay on Jamaica and all, he could have picked up the reggae vibe, which, fortunately, never took place. (Curiously, the album was recorded at the exact same studio where just a few months before The Rolling Stones laid down the basic tracks for Goats Head Soup — another experimental and partly failed musical trip that also fortunately avoided any reggae influences. Clearly, Jamaica was not the most auspicious place for British musicians in 1973).

Cat Stevens: Catch Bull At Four

CAT STEVENS: CATCH BULL AT FOUR (1972)

1) Sitting; 2) Boy With A Moon & Star On His Head; 3) Angelsea; 4) Silent Sunlight; 5) Can't Keep It In; 6) 18th Avenue (Kansas City Nightmare); 7) Freezing Steel; 8) O Caritas; 9) Sweet Scarlet; 10) Ruins.

Okay, this one is definitely not for the little children. Almost as if to intentionally distance him­self from the lightweight attitude of the last record, here Stevens offers us a cycle of really «heavy» songs that ultimately combine in a sort of multi-part proclamation of spiritual intent. From the first to the last track, a few interludes notwithstanding, Catch Bull At Four is focused on conveying the following two truths: (a) the world around us is evil, corrupt, and degraded; (b) the artist Cat Stevens takes this state of the world as a personal challenge and is going to do every­thing in his power to at least avoid being contaminated by its evil and degradation, and at most, even lend a helping hand in partially remedying its problems.

This is a noble and admirable intent indeed, perhaps going even further than similar projects like Marvin Gaye's What's Going On; but it could easily suffer from the same problem — too much spirituality and not enough striking musical ideas. In terms of arrangements, Catch Bull At Four goes well beyond its predecessor: there is more orchestration, more emphasis on loudness and bombast, and Cat has also developed a serious interest in keyboards, playing everything from standard and electric pianos to organs and even minimoogs. But in terms of melodic basis, he seems to be seriously stuck in two modes — piano balladry and the Renaissance folk tradition; both of which are respectable, but only when you really try to experiment with these forms rather than simply letting them carry you with the current, while you yourself are way too busy questio­ning your reasons for existence in this sad, sordid world.

The record never really gets better than its opening song, ʽSittingʼ, and even that one is no masterpiece. Its most prominent element is not its ringing piano riff, which is a fairly trivial exer­cise in folk-pop, but rather Cat's ultra-serious and surprisingly gruff vocal tone: his voice may have gone through a natural lowering by that time, but it seems to me that he is very self-con­sciously moving away from the «fairness» of his vocal intonations, replacing them with a stern Biblical scruffiness to make the whole thing sound more like a sermon, or, rather, a personal religious confession: "I feel the power growing in my hair" is, after all, a line fit for a modern day Samson, and you can't really voice a Samson with the voice of young Joseph. But even so, the song — as a musical entity — seems very lazy, especially since the chorus, being just a small up-the-scale variation on the verse, never capitalizes upon the promise of the latter.

This «laziness», however, is even more pronounced on the interminable ballad ʽThe Boy With A Moon & Star On His Headʼ — six minutes of the exact same folksy acoustic riff, during which time you are treated to an odd (and, I'd say, quite morally ambiguous) story of cheating on one's fiancée for the sake of getting a bastard offspring from a gardener's daughter. Curiously, even though the "moon and star" reference would seem to be very directly pointing towards Stevens' conversion to Islam, that was definitely not in the works yet as of 1972; and yet, in a way, the story may be interpreted as a prophetic allegory of his future conversion. For all its artistic intrigue, though, it is just a generic six-minute folk ballad with no development whatsoever — there is one point midway through when the acoustic lull is suddenly interrupted by a crash of percussion and flutes, but it is just for a couple bars to simulate the "merriment" during the protagonist's wedding. Granted, I can pardon these things to Bob Dylan if he has the unique sonic atmosphere to go along with them (ʽSad-Eyed Ladyʼ, etc.), or to Fairport Convention if they raise and sustain the nervous tension (ʽMatty Grovesʼ, etc.), but this is just too... sleepy.

As the first single from the album, Cat chose ʽCan't Keep It Inʼ, one of the album's livelier tunes with a bombastic arrangement, overwhelming vocal harmonies, and danceable rhythm, not to mention the grandiose message that pops out almost immediately: "Oh I can't keep it in, I've gotta let it out, I've got to show the world, world's got to see, see all the love that's in me". It is unclear, though, why he would choose the same gruff tone to deliver the message — the song, once again, sounds more like a professional church sermon than a heartfelt personal plea, and the more I listen to it, the more I understand that the church, rather than a club or an arena, is a perfect set­ting in which to perform it, and that is not a good sign.

The three most interesting songs on the album would probably have to be ʽAngelseaʼ, a love­struck folk dance whose acoustic verses are oddly woven together with dark Moog oscillations (the «folktronica» style here is strangely prescient of Jethro Tull's work from the early Eighties); ʽ18th Avenueʼ — another apocalyptic narrative with loud piano and string interludes, probably influenced by Elton John but also strangely prescient of... Meatloaf?; and ʽO' Caritasʼ, another «world gone wrong» type song with multi-tracked vocals that were specially translated for Cat into Latin, so that the final result would have a Carmina Burana-like flair (though the acoustic melody is more Spanish / Greek folk than medieval stylization). However, these musical ideas are not enough, per se, to completely redeem the album; and it ends on an even more anti-climactic note than it began — ʽRuinsʼ is 100% pumped-up preachy feeling, with clichéd lyrics to boot ("don't stop that sun to shine, it's not yours or mine" is simply no way to end a good record).

Surprisingly, the record sold fairly well, and it even became Stevens' only No. 1 in the US — probably following in the footsteps of Teaser; critics, however, have rarely liked it for its rela­tive dearth of musical ideas and its unveiled populism, and this time I must concur — Catch Bull At Four is a classic example of a songwriter overrating his own importance, even if doing this in good faith and out of a sincere desire to help get things right. Still worth a listen or two, but I would be surprised if more than one or two songs off it got stuck around in your head for too long; and I would be downright embarrassed if you told me that, in its time, it helped you to become a better person and begin campaigning for waste sorting or world peace or something.

Cat Stevens: Teaser And The Firecat

CAT STEVENS: TEASER AND THE FIRECAT (1971)

1) The Wind; 2) Rubylove; 3) If I Laugh; 4) Changes IV; 5) How Can I Tell You; 6) Tuesday's Dead; 7) Morning Has Broken; 8) Bitterblue; 9) Moonshadow; 10) Peace Train.

Together with Tillerman, this album generally forms the backbone of the Cat Stevens legend: both were his most commercially successful and critically applauded projects, both yielded many of his best-known songs and both continue to be top-rank recommendations for neophytes. Less heavily publicized is the fact that the two records, actually, are strikingly different in certain ways, and, in my opinion, the differences do not necessarily come out in favor of Teaser; in fact, de­spite its generous brevity, accessibility, and inevitably alluring friendliness, I find it surprisingly hard to warm up to its material on the same heat level with Tillerman.

The whole package was superficially marketed as a «children's album» — starting from the carto­onish album cover and ending with an actual children's book that Cat wrote about the adventures of the album's two characters and published soon after the release of the record. In essential terms this is not really true: although the main lyrical and emotional themes of Teaser are quite easily accessible for kids and adults alike, they are serious and realistic — songs about, well, uhm, peace, love, and understanding, for the lack of a worse cliché. The «kiddie setting» here is more to underline the innocence and idealism of the singer-songwriter than to specifically appeal to a young audience: like most folk-based troubadours of the early Seventies, Stevens quite expressly catered to all ages and all social backgrounds. And yet, in the process, I think he crossed a certain line that usually separates «serious» from «cutesy» — nor does it help that «cutesy» can occasio­nally be irritating when it is too strongly mixed with «preachy».

Musically, the record is markedly more minimalistic than its predecessor: many of the songs feature nothing but one or two acoustic guitars that may or may not receive the gentle, non-intru­sive support of pianos and a rhythm section. It is with this minimalism, one that places nothing between the tender heart of the artist and his enthralled listeners, that Stevens makes his point: melody-wise, as usual, there is very little here that goes beyond the ABCs of folk-based singer-songwriters, although it is still nice to see him cleverly weave together Anglo-Saxon folk music and Latin motives on stuff like ʽRubyloveʼ. But friendly minimalism can sometimes backfire: unless you support it with a touch of McCartney-style musical genius, its insistent «let me be your friend in need!» message may provoke a shoulder-shrugging reaction.

Case in point — the man's biggest hit and the song with which he is most commonly associated by those people who have never even seen Harold And Maude: ʽPeacetrainʼ. It has an interesting melodic trick up its sleeve, with the rising chord progression over the verses giving the illusion of an ever-rising stairwell or, perhaps, of an endless row of people mounting the proverbial train. But it is stylistically cut out as a rousing, gospel-tinged R&B number, and yet it has nothing like the true potential of one. It is Cat's personal ʽImagineʼ, but where the minimalism of ʽImagineʼ felt perfectly natural, it being more of a personal fantasy / prayer than a public sermon (even if the lyrics could technically allow you to construe it as one), ʽPeacetrainʼ desperately needs to be louder and prouder (à la ʽPower To The Peopleʼ rather than ʽImagineʼ, actually) for its potential to be fully realised. It is not at all bad — it just feels demo-ish, if you know what I mean.

As, well, does most of this record. It is just so quiet, so inoffensive, so sentimental, that even songs that could be formally stated to have pop hooks (ʽChanges IVʼ, ʽTuesday's Deadʼ) take a long, long time to win my attention; and yet, it is also not the kind of J. J. Cale-like, arrogantly defying minimalism that tacitly shouts in your face «I'm gonna do the bare minimum and you are fuckin' goin' to like it!», nor is it the grim Taoistic minimalism of a Nick Drake that haunts you with its world-gone-wrong spirit. Nor is it even a grotesque elfish-prince minimalism of a Donovan, whose antics might scare away some people, but eventually win over others with their outstanding goofiness. Instead, it is a warm-evening-on-the-front-porch kind of minimalism, starting with the gently self-probing introduction of ʽThe Windʼ (which does, appropriately, have a reference to the "setting sun") and ending with the (misguidedly) humble admonition of ʽPeace­trainʼ. In between these, the only song that ended up genuinely moving me on a certain level of spiritual depth was ʽIf I Laughʼ — its melody has a subtle twist of George Harrison-like tragism that elevates it to the level of high art. But everything else is just... nice.

Were I John Lennon (heck, I have already made references to two out of four, so why not make it three? now if only «Peace and Love» Ringo happened to make a cover of ʽPeacetrainʼ, we could close the circle and go home), anyway, were I John Lennon, I would not have missed a chance to scoff at the record and dismiss it as, say, «pleasantries for peasantries». What makes it different from so many other «pleasantries» of (technically) the same kind is that it has style, charisma, and heart — no matter how lightweight the songs may sound while they are on or how quickly forgotten they may be when they are gone, it is clear that they are all a part of the man's humble, respectful search for the Big Truth — a search that, if you don't mind me blasphemizing in the face of The Almighty, ultimate­ly ended up somewhat caricaturesquely, but commanded respect and acceptance on the level of Teaser And The Firecat. Nevertheless, despite the catchy cho­ruses of ʽChanges VIʼ and ʽTuesday's Deadʼ and even despite the heart-tugging pang of misery on ʽIf I Laughʼ, I do not foresee myself returning to this album as frequently as I might be revisi­ting Tea For The Tillerman — or, heck, even Matthew & Son, for that matter.