Goodbye Girl, Girl Goodbye

TOTO, voted America's Sexiest Band 1982

A while ago I penned a review of the top ten songs on Spotify called 'Hourglass', prompted by a phase where I was listening to the Squeeze song almost obsessively. Undoubtedly, the format was a crashing failure, and I've never returned to that particular puddle of vomit...until today. We're back, baby!

This time around, it's TOTO's incredible 'Girl Goodbye' that's been getting the juices flowing. For those of you uninitiated to the pleasures of melodic rock, TOTO were the mightiest of musos, virtually carrying the entire US AOR industry on its back during the late 1970s and early 1980s. As well as massive songs like 'Hold The Line', 'Rosanna' and 'Africa', its constituent members guested on any number of smooth classics in the yacht rock wheelhouse; the discography section of drummer Jeff Porcaro's Wikipedia page is quite something to behold. 

The great thing about 'Girl Goodbye' is that not only does it retain TOTO's trademark facility with a soaring chorus, but it's got some attitude and aggression to it that one doesn't readily associate with the band. It got me thinking - there must be plenty of other kiss-off songs with the words 'girl' and 'goodbye' in the title, so I've fired up Spotify and given 'em a listen. 

Artist: TOTO

Song: 'Girl Goodbye'
Rivals both Boney M's 'Rasputin' and Squeeze's 'Hourglass' as the greatest song ever recorded. Singer Bobby Kimball is all over this piece; curiously, the lyrics fall into a strange yacht rock preoccupation of being a bad-ass criminal on the run, a la Boz Scaggs' 'Lido Shuffle' and Christopher Cross' 'Ride Like the Wind'. Sample lyrics:

Yeah I'm out on the run,
Got some heat, got a gun

Objectively very cool stuff I'm sure you'll agree. What's 'heat' doing here, I wonder? If it's the 'heat' that comes from police attention, fair enough; but it's a reference to a firearm, it's a tautology because he mentions that very fact in the next breath.

Oh there's smoke in the air,

And there's blood everywhere

But I'm hoping that the white man don't recognise me

Look pal, you're in TOTO - I say this as a man of almost spectral pallor, but if there's one thing us white people recognise and love, it's this kind of overblown bullshit pomp-rock! Nonetheless, this slams, Steve Lukather plays some cool riffs and I like the keyboard at the start. 10/10

Artist: Squeeze
Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Making their second appearance in this format, it's Squeeze. And it's the usual wide-eyed kitchen-sink earnestness from these boys. This time, Squeeze are not ditching their old lady to make a run for the border, no - true to form, they're the sadsacks left on their lonesome, getting robbed for good measure. It's charming pop-rock with a percussion track that sounds like a commuter train pulling into a station with a short platform. 7/10

Artist: Go West

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
This features one of the most horrendous synth tones ever devised. I wouldn't be surprised if it was initially perfected as part of a secret non-lethal weapons programme. Anyway, it crawls along with all the energy of an arthritic snail, but I have to concede the vocals are good and there is a little bit of wobbly Mick Karn / Pino Palladino style fretless bass, which made me laugh. 4/10

Artist: David Gates
Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Yup, it's the guy from Bread - I suppose TOTO owe him and his ilk for popularising a brand of mature soft-rock with a focus on chorus hooks and high production values. This is exactly as I had imagined it - a pretty soppy piano 'n' strings ballad with, yes, a big chorus hook. Gates sounds like a schlub, which actually works well given the context. It's okay. 6/10

Artist: Broadcast
Song: 'Goodbye Girls'
The most impressive thing about this slice of lo-fi postmodernism is that they get the word 'counterparts' into the lyrics. The vocals are faux-naif psychedelic, the electronics sound like a fax machine performing an extended death scene. Decent, I suppose, if that brand of hauntology floats your boat. 5/10

Artist: Luke Bryan

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'

Some 'cry into your whiskey' country corn-pone here courtesy of Mr Bryan. This kind of music sounds almost focus-grouped; just enough lap steel to offer a patina of regional authenticity, a lolloping pace entirely fit for such a mournsome subject and a vocals that conjure up a regular ol' boy who's tough, but hurtin'. In other words, the most horribly banal Nashville conveyor belt pabulum imaginable. 2/10

Artist: Rumer

Song: 'Goodbye Girl'
Does this have both a zither and a harmonica on it? That's neat. A little nondescript in the verses, but Rumer has a voice suited to confessional, intimate music, and the chorus is rather lovely, nodding as it does to the girl group sound of the Ronettes. Not bad! 7/10

Artist: Peter Criss
Song: 'Kiss The Girl Goodbye'

So it's KISS' very own street fightin' man on his first solo album here (which coincided of debut solos from the other three members of the hottest band in the world). I recall reading, once upon a time, that Criss considered his voice analogous to Rod Stewart; yeah, perhaps whilst he was getting his stomach pumped. What a fucking mess this is; this is like a Big Star ballad being played by a band who have never heard Big Star before. 1/10

Artist: Art Farmer

Song: 'Goodbye, Old Girl'
When I saw the song title I thought to myself, "is this going to be about a horse?". It's not; rather, it's trumpet player Art Farmer blowing a sweet, warm and emotional slow jazz number. It's a joy to hear this kind of unfiltered, in-the-moment playing, both from Farmer but also his pianist accompanist, who creates a bed of twinkling arpeggios for the lead instrument to ease back into. Beautiful. 9/10

Artist: Aaron Watson

Song: 'Kiss That Girl Goodbye'
What did I give the Luke Bryan number? Two out of ten? Well, it's twice as good as this noisy bro-country slurry. I once endured a nine-hour drive from Colorado to Kansas where the radio station was permanently tuned to this kind of dogshit, and I swear I could feel my IQ dropping in real time. At least Bryan tries to connect with some semblance of human emotion; this is eighty percent proof moonshine nihilism, and seems to revel in the fact. 1/10 for somewhat resembling music.

There's your lot - of course, TOTO emerge triumphant, but I could listen to that Art Farmer track again and again, plus I was pleasantly surprised by Rumer's offering in the 'goodbye girl / girl goodbye' stakes. Perhaps I'll give this format another go sometime? Maybe one day I'll actually make an entertaining fist of it? Who can say?

High Voltage - AC/DC

 

Provenance: Somewhat murky; this is my first AC/DC album, and I suspect I bought it myself in Bournemouth's Essential Music. 

However, a tiny voice buzzing in the back of my mind tells me that my dad possibly bought this for me on a whim? Which is odd, as his tastes veer more towards Frank Zappa and the mighty Gryphon. Meat 'n' potatoes Antipodean rock was part of the household ambience until my brother and I indicated that we wanted to make a ruckus on drums and guitar respectively.

Incidentally, we liked AC/DC because it sounded simple to play, but then we could never get the rhythm of 'T.N.T.' correct and gave up. Does this suggest hitherto underrated rhythmic complexity on the part of messrs Young, Young, Scott et al? Or utter ineptitude from our side when it came to playing even the most basic of rock 'n' roll songs? You be the judge!

Review: Despite Twitter's brain-rotting qualities, around about the time of the 2016 US presidential election, some online wag once commented that "Donald Trump is probably the first president who likes AC/DC", meant to be a fairly unflattering comment on both. Intriguingly, whilst it appears that AC/DC may have actually written a song about Donny Deals, we don't know if the Trumpster has ever cranked 'Thunderstruck' or 'Whole Lotta Rosie' in the Oval Office, Trump Tower or Mar-A-Lago. We do know that the 45th president of the USA was one of the first people to purchase Guns N Roses' Use Your Illusion albums and that he rates the music video to 'November Rain'. Horses for courses - me, I think, like the song, it's excessive, tacky and overblown.

It's worth noting that High Voltage was not exactly a collection of original material; rather, it was a cut 'n' shut job of the band's previous two Australia-only releases. Let's just say you can't hear the join - there's no big evolution, Incredible String Band-style, between their first album (confusingly also titled High Voltage) and the next (which is called T.N.T. but is the first time we hear a song called 'High Voltage - keeping up?). Taking a gander at the two Australian releases, the material from T.N.T. that wound up on this album is stronger, though that does include 'The Jack', a song I consider utterly devoid of merit.

Were AC/DC really so primitive? Well, yes. This is pretty much an album of foot-stomping, blooz-based rockers without a particular surfeit of chord voicings to contend with. However, there's plenty going for it; for a start, the Young brothers somehow alighted on one of the meanest, crunchiest guitar tones this side of the International Date Line, which means even when they're vamping away on something simple like 'Rock 'N' Roll Singer' or 'She's Got Balls', the music has a kicky, muscular feel to it that is quite irresistible.

There's also a kind of genius at play in the sheer economy of the sound - it's raw and uncluttered, and to my ears all the tones from guitars and bass come solely from amplifier settings being tweaked. This really stands out in 2021, given the amount of preamp and production-stage effects most guitar parts are wrung through in modern music. Every instrument and voice thus has room to breathe, the biggest beneficiary being Phil Rudd's drumming, which is basic to the point of being Stone Age, but is executed with a truly organic sense of feel and groove.

I will admit that the combination of Bon Scott and AC/DC's lyrics are an acquired taste. Personally, I like his winking, leering good-time delivery, but at times the words make me want to hide. Aside from, 'The Jack', the most tedious and wretched joint here, 'Little Lover' and 'Can I Sit Next To You Girl' set my teeth on edge. However, Scott comes into his own when yelping about how hard AC/DC rock (always a fertile subject), especially 'It's A Long Way to the Top', 'Live Wire' (my favourite Scott performance on High Voltage) and 'High Voltage'. He's also good at playing the dangerous gunslinger on 'T.N.T.', the best track here - from its chewy guitar hook and the chanted 'oi!' intro to the braggadocio of the lyrics ("So lock up your daughter, lock up your wife / Lock up your back door, run for your life / The man is back in town / So you don't you mess me 'round") it simply whips ass.

Oh, and whilst the colour palette may be a little spare, AC/DC do achieve one notable feat, which is making the bagpipes sound bearable in popular music. Something even the maestro, Paul McCartney, failed to do. Undoubtedly a nod to the Scottish roots of half the band (Forfar-bon Scott is, apparently, the bag-botherer in question), its inclusion in 'It's A Long Way...' is extraordinary, propulsive, droning and huge. I have seen another band, Finnish folk metallers Korpiklaani, do an okay job with bagpipes, but this is the only example I actively like (NB: it seems that Korpiklaani have ditched the instrument; it seems that only one of the thirty-four people to have been in the band could blow pipe; they've kept the accordion, though - hmmm).

AC/DC would, of course, go on to dominate the world of hard rock, most notably with the record-breaking Back In Black, and would arguably compose better music. However, as a manifesto for a tough, scrappy bunch of barroom rattlers, High Voltage hits all the marks. Yes, they got bigger - but did they ever sound more vital?