Jesus X. Almighty!! I'm alternately flabbergasted and pissed off:
* Flab: I didn't have a copy of this already and it's fabulous;
* Pissed: How come Stewart didn't make any more of these?! He played every instrument on this thing, several of the tracks sound for all the world like full-blown Police material, and somehow Klark couldn't escape the phone booth for the past, oh, 26 years?
* Flab: The quality of this thing is amazing. You guys kept talking about it being kind of silly lyrically, which I'll grant you, but it's not insipid, and there's a difference. At first I thought it was going to be several tens of minutes of versions of that song "I'm an Adult Now," by Pursuit of Happiness, but I think I'd compare some of the songs to Offspring instead: silly, but inspired. Intelligent, even. But musically, this is much superior to either of those bands.
Stewart's said he doesn't like the sound of his own voice, but I've thought before he sells himself short as a vocalist, and here's the pudding (I found a few grains of what look an awful lot like proof floating around in the bottom...) He probably wouldn't have the range of someone like, say, Tim Buckley without years of practice, and if that's not his thing, well, OK, then. But it isn't because he somehow lacks any native ability.
*Pissed: I don't know if Stewart or one of his brothers wrote the hilarious liner notes. I have my suspicions, but truth be told it could be either of them...
*Flab: The quality of the instrumentation. How come we, um, don't ever hear about Stewart on the guitar?? How come we didn't know he was aces on the keyboard? Well, we did, since most of us listened to this record, but it's not something that gets discussed a lot. Sheeez. No wonder he didn't feel like taking orders from Sting.
*Pissed: OK, well, we're back to no more KK records. I guess my "pissed" list is pretty short after all.
*Flab: The production...here's Stewart with Nigel Gray and this thing is as tight as could be.
OK, I suspect I'm going to have some more thoughts about this going forward. I had to listen in kind of a hurry because I'm cramming like crazy to pass a dive-theory test in the morning, but I'll have more time shortly.
So far I'm really liking "Grandelinquent," which sounds A LOT like half of Regatta de Blanc...Jedsoon, should I buy the singles if I can find 'em on Ebay? Any bonus materials or laugh-out-loud liner notes?