Pat Boone: "In A Metal Mood", Tower Import, MCA HPD 40025 (53 mins) Dial-a- track code: 1531
This album is sub-titled, No More Mr Nice Guy. Yeah, sure. That, from Pat Boone, the man who once refused to appear in a movie with Marilyn Monroe because "there was no moral retribution" for the character of the married man who had an affair. His Christian base also dictated that Boone just couldn't allow himself to kiss his co-star in his first movie, though it didn't stop him from having what he recently described as "up to eight affairs" during his marriage.
Whatever way you look at it, Pat Boone is no "mean metal mutha" and this album should be the sickest joke in the history of pop. Strangely enough, it's not. And it sure has attracted media attention in the US. Partly, no doubt, because it is perverse to hear Boone in a "metal mood", doing magnificent big-band arrangements of songs like Smoke On The Water, Enter Sandman and The Wind Cries Mary. Yep, you read that right. Pat Boone sings Hendrix.
In his sleeve notes the singer, claims that this, in effect, is a return to roots, reminding us that he has covered tunes such as Little Richard's Tutti Frutti. He covered them all right, in syrup, toning down the raucous and highly sexual dimension of black R `n' B music to make it palatable for middle America. Even so, he had one of the most beautiful voices in early rock.
Even now, when the setting is right, he can sing like a dream, as in The Wind Cries Mary. Best of all however, is when he really goes back to base, with Love Hurts. This is probably the most unusual album of the year - definitely "pop" as defined by U2. Particularly when Boone sings, "oh Lord", which really gives the game away - and ends the album with a clearly Christ serving Stairway To Heaven.
"Hunter S. Thompson: Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas", Various artists, Margaritaville Records, 542 309 2 (76 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1641
The man who wrote, and still writes, in a positively manic metal mood. Particularly about delicate subjects such as drug-crazed degenerates brandishing a sabre and being asked by a buddy to turn up Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, so he can hear "the peak". Yes, folks, it's all here, on this surround-sound, CD-dramatisation of Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas, the book that led generations of like-minded, well, yes, drug-crazed degenerates, into "New /Journalism".
Harry Dean Stanton is the Narrator, Maury Chaukin is Gonzo, Jim Jarmusch is Duke. There are also sound-bites from songs such as: White Rabbit, Sympathy For The Devil and, of course, One Toke Over The Line. Twenty-five years later it all surround-sounds more than a little masturbatory. A fascinating cultural artefact, perhaps, but essential listening only if you got stoned in the 1970s and have remained that way ever since.
Cyndi Lauper. "Sisters Of Avalon", Epic, 485370 2 (51 mins) Dial-a-track code: 1751
Once upon a time, Cyndi sang that pre-Spice Girls anthem, Girls Just Want To Have Fun, but now she's all grown up and sings of the Sisters of Avalon, in a surprisingly stunning comeback album. At least, at points, such as Say A Prayer, when she taps into the talent of producer Mark Saunders, who also worked on Tricky's Maxinquaye, and on Cleo And Joe, which celebrates dance-as-redemption. It's a little like Saturday Night Fever 1997-style.
But she really shines when she sinks her teeth into Love To Hate You, which focuses on all the "vampires that come out at night", particularly the "fashion fascists". A similar species exists in rock culture, and this album proves those who wrote Cyndi Lauper off as "purely 1980s retro were wrong.
