Thursday, December 11, 2008

Record of the Month - Classic

Another installment of a disk I have enjoyed over the years. I'm trying to keep the Record of the Month posts to be fairly new releases. Classics are going to be ones that are at least 5 years old.


I think this is my first male artist Classic post. Granted, he doesn't get much gayer. Well, I don't think Chris Isaak is gay - but one could hope.

Silvertone was his debut disk, and arguably his best. The year was 1985 and I saw his video for "Dancin'" on Friday Night Videos (yes yes, I'm dating myself.......again). I went out and got the disk the next day. I thought he was tres sexy, but I really liked the music.

It was a bit Elvis, a bit Orbison, a bit rock and bit rockabilly and all good. ...and I can't say that about all Isaak's disks. He has some incredible music, and some incredibly marginal music. I'm not sure he has any bad music. For all his albums, if you took the good stuff, you could have 3-4 outstanding disks. As it turns out, he really only had one bona fide hit.

But back to Silvertone. There isn't really a bad song on the disk, but there are some really outstanding tracks. "Dancin'" being the lead-off. Simple. Clean. And just downright good. The epitome of cool.

I also love "Talk to Me", "Back on Your Side", "VooDoo" and most of all - "Another Idea". I really like his version of "Western Stars" - and kd lang does an incredible cover of it.

No - he ain't just a pretty face. He's a talented musician and a good singer/songwriter. But oh - whatta face!

3 comments:

RJ March said...

Oddly-- or not-- he's singing behind me, and when the DJ announced him, he said, "...that cute old Chris Isaac..." The song's changed now, but the immediacy still exists. Do we love him because he's so tortured? He has a funny nose. Word verification is PONIN. I can't wait until Friday.

Anonymous said...

He's so dreamy...

Ultra Dave said...

He is hot! and supposely hung like a horse, but as long as he sang to me, who cares?