Re: Nina Simone - Baltimore (1978)

by Guest Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:35 pm

Last one is more upbeat, a sorta 70s AOR take on a ***** Spiritual.

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:36 pm

Hints of the Doobie Brothers meet the Staple Singers.

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:37 pm

Praise Him!

by **The Call of the Wendigo** Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:38 pm

It is over.

I felt that started promisingly but Side 2 became increasingly lacklustre as it went along and it ended on a damp squib.

Now to look back at the thread and see what everybody else made of it. Excited

by **The Call of the Wendigo** Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:38 pm

I shall give it 3 stars.

by Guest Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:40 pm

It is over.

It does sound like an album where the vocals were recorded at gunpoint.

I like the Reggae, and more modern ones, the vocals didn't fit, but in an interesting way. The big syrupy ballad ones bored me senseless.

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:42 pm

Well, that is a quite interesting album.

An odd melange of genres and some spectacularly lush production and orchestral arrangements.

NS's voice is consistently NIina Simone-esque throughout whether the song suited it or not.

Anyway, I'm very fond of it as a strange anomaly in her repertoire.

She disliked it on the main from what I understand, mainly to do with what she felt was something of a Phil Spector-ish production overload and the Reggae stylings.

That however is what I like about the album.

by Guest Thu Sep 03, 2020 7:46 pm

The studio this was recorded as was owned by Marc Aryan Excited

Nina Simone - Baltimore (1978) - Page 5 A-312854-1409409991-5031.jpeg

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:11 pm

★★.

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:11 pm

Overall, it's probably a ★★★ album though. sad yes

by Guest Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:17 pm

It was borderline, but I was so bored during the slow ones.

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:25 pm

Weirdly though, for me, the Side 2 borers were actually quite short.

But they were still quite pedestrian and by the numbers.

The couple on Side 1 were relatively long, but they were so lush and epic and NS's vocals really were given full scope, complexity and power that I find them really immersive.

Especially the Bond one.

When she sings the last word "change" it gives me the ganderbumps and collywobbles.

by Guest Thu Sep 03, 2020 8:29 pm

Side one was borderline 4/3 but side 2, Sleep

by Nightjar Thu Sep 03, 2020 9:13 pm

I think the bizarre reverse-reverse-reverse (too many reverses?) cultural appropriation of "Rich Girl" is such an oddball success-failure-success-failure (too many successes/reverses?) that it raises side 2 to a 3 and I'm not going to say that a 4th time even though I only said it probably twice.

shifty