I’m reviewing each disc in isolation (and ranking each – as it turns out they sell separately now).
Alas and alack, this 3 disc listen has taken me aback.
I expected to find genius aplenty, but damn fine tunes I count around only twenty.
The exploration of genres – most notably Broadway, started off with a bang but too soon went astray.
This final installment careens like a carnival ride, more vomitous than pleasant on my Thai-based insides.
OK, I’m getting off this couplet endeavour. But, I was indeed alarmed by the significant decline over the journey. Steve Merrit pens a few more very clever ditties on this disc, although even fewer are fully realised in terms of performance. If you packaged this up as outtakes and demos, I’d believe it.
There is loads of fodder here too, the sort of songs you might catch in a b-grade off-broadway/university musical and forgot the minute the next number commenced.
I wonder whether the energy just ran out on this project, and whether I will listen to this in its entirety ever again.
Tracks I would include on my single-disc version: Busby Berkeley Dreams, Queen of the Savages, and Love Is Like A Bottle Of Gin (which probably won’t be used to promote alcohol real soon):
Coincidently a different song on this album had me thinking of Blackadder (the King of the Boudoir track), which also featured Fry & Laurie!
File under: Too much negativity
