Rod Stewart, pt. 2: Anthony's Album Guide

This is an oh-so-slightly edited version of a post I made on Tumblr almost a decade ago(!). My handy dandy profoundly subjective numerical rating scheme is explained here. Part 1 is here.

Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 (1979) 8
Foolish Behaviour (1980) 7
Tonight I’m Yours (1981) 8
Absolutely Live (1982) 4
Body Wishes (1983) 3
Camouflage (1984) 5
Every Beat Of My Heart (1986) 4
Out Of Order (1988) 7

Decade two kicks off with a compilation catching all the mandatory setlist moments from Rod’s “I’ve lost Ron, but I’ve still got wood” period. The anachronistic presence of ”Maggie May” is the most listenable absurdity you’ll find on one of his best-ofs. It’s tempting to say Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 came a year too early, as Foolish Behaviour feels like that era’s last chapter. But the corny club angst of “Passion,” Behaviour’s biggest hit, sounds best on the full-length, sandwiched by the brash nihilism of “Better Off Dead” and the title track, a murder fantasy as catchy as any of the Stones’, made all the more creepy/alluring by a giggly bonhomie Mick could never manage. Bizarrely, “Oh God, I Wish I Was Home Tonight,” a disarming valentine old fans could cling to as a sign of life, comes just two songs later. The B side can’t compare, but Behavior’s A side might be my favorite since he had Kenney and a jones.

I love the US chart trivia that “Passion” and “Young Turks,” the sentimental climax of Tonight I’m Yours, both peaked at #5 in 1981. That Rod could have a meltdown at Studio 54, only to bop blissfully onto MTV with shimmering synth-pop in less than a year is amazing. That America took both tracks with equal enthusiasm is baffling. “Turks” and the almost unnervingly eager title track (those shrieks!) make Tonight’s more typical numbers sound, well, typical, but nothing deflates the good humor established by the album cover - a joke it took way too long for me to notice. Even the “Miss You” rewrite and the schmaltz gospel closer have a spring in their step beyond the dictates of commerce (again, those shrieks!).

Absolutely Live bravely tries to make a piece of Rod’s whole career, when it’s hard enough to match 1980 with 1981. But when the ballads aren’t steamrolled by the boisterous band, the endless anono-hollers from the audience do the job. I get WOOing the start of “Gasoline Alley,” but the middle? Body Wishes’s cover is less a joke than a self-deprecating historical reference, and “a self-deprecating historical reference” is what the album has become thirty plus years later. Despite the lack of any covers, Wishes’ classic-rock and synth-rock hit Smiler levels of detachment, and Rod reaches his Old Wave nadir on a damnably po-faced rallying cry named…oof…“Ghetto Blaster.” Camouflage has feistier arrangements and better singles. But, as fun as it can be to watch Rod prance around in Bad Idea Jeans, an electro-soul “All Right Now” cover is an electro-soul “All Right Now” cover. The bursts of goofiness are now a given, and where Jeff Beck was once tolerated, now he’s a breath of fresh air.

The 1986 album was known as Rod Stewart in some places, and Every Beat Of My Heart in others, depending on whether a sticker with the name of the single was placed on the cover, which otherwise just said “Rod Stewart.” Ironically, the lyrics suffer from an excess of effort (i.e., “in a cell below the courthouse/ they beat him like a slave/ but his use of martial arts/ struck a blow for liberty”). Few call this clunky curiosity anything today, but if I must, I’ll call it Every Beat Of My Heart out of respect for whoever didn’t make a sticker highlighting “Love Touch.” Stewart/Savigar’s plodding “Heart” isn’t much better than Chapman/Knight’s steel-drum festooned theme from Legal Eagles, but at least it doesn’t have the phrase “give you my love touch” (though “Heart” does have the line “seagull, carry me/ over land and sea”). Fun fact: Heart was produced by the guy who did Lou Reed’s Berlin, except for “Love Touch,” which keeps the album from being Rod’s Berlin.

“Love Touch” wasn’t Rod’s saddest soundtrack moment, though. That would be his ‘87 cover of his ‘72 cover of Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ The Night Away” for Innerspace. I’m impressed by any Faces fan that makes it to the belated arrival of Martin Short in the video. Not that they’ll be glad they did.

The Out Of Order singles were omnipresent at the dawn of my pop awareness, so it’s hard to say whether collaborating with The Power Station was a step out of the mid-’80s morass for Rod, or just a more familiar slice of mid-’80s morass for me. But “My Heart Can’t Tell You No” still sounds like the “Missing You” sequel John Waite never gave us, and “Lost In You” is the romantic winner Bryan Adams forgot to put on Into The Fire. “Crazy About Her” is a beautifully batshit sax-rap about a working stiff obsessed with “the boss’ girl…oh no!”, a vixen runs around Central Park “with one of those Walkmans on her head.” I also appreciate Andy Taylor’s gratuitous fretwork throughout.

I’ll only blog (without getting paid, anyway) decades in an artist’s discography when I’m sure at least one album is worth owning, so I’ve got to leave Rod here (though I recommend his autobiography, the exceptionally amiable Rod). If forced to investigate a later album, I’d dig into the Y2K R&B lusciousness of Human, an album of songs by others no one has made famous yet. A Tom Waits cover here, and a Blue Nile cover there, have been enjoyable novelties. But I’m not in a rush to find out which of his many Songbooks I like best, and his new singer-songwriter albums seem like honest, if dubious, attempts to reclaim the energy of his ‘80s work. I’m glad to know he’s got the content when I’ve got the time, though. And here's hoping he spends more time with The Faces in his eighties, and less with The Farages.

If you think I've underrated Body Wishes, or that A Spanner In The Works is a lost classic I should indulge asap, send that digital shriek to anthonyisright at gmail dot com.