Brave New World

Steve Miller Band | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 23, 1994)
• Original Release Date: 1969
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B000002UU1
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,766 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Brave New World

2. Celebration Song

3. Can't You Here Your Daddy's Heartbeat

4. Got Love 'Cause You Need It

5. Kow Kow

6. Seasons

7. Space Cowboy

8. Lt's Midnight Dream

9. My Dark Hour

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brave Old Steve, October 24, 2011

By 

Ross Blaufarb - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brave New World (Audio CD)

Before Steve Miller's mainstream breakout with The Joker in 1973 he had a whole other career as one of the pioneers of the San Francisco sound, playing shoulder to shoulder with the likes of the Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead. His early canon, released between 1968 and 1972, consists of seven records starting with Children of the Future. Brave New World from 1969 is the third of these seminal albums. For many Miller fans this was his most important and musically satisfying era - when he was young and bold enough to take musical and conceptual risks (and some LSD, no doubt) and hadn't yet become a brand of the good-time cruisin' middle class.

The songs on Brave New World combine Miller's signature blues influence and distinctive, almost conversational vocal style with a psychedelic hippie sensibility of peace, love, and cosmic adventure in a seamless and satisfying blend. His blues' earthbound grittiness and high and close, double and triple-tracked harmonies evoking new age hope for a better tomorrow might seem at odds with each other. But from the eponymous first track's rocket blast-off sound effects that segue into industrial clanging and chiming guitars, this album takes you on a musical interstellar journey with his Gangster of Love persona trading in his brand-new Cadillac for a spaceship that he hopes will not only help him get the girl, but save humanity along the way.

The sadly under-rated late drummer, vocalist and contributing songwriter Tim Davis and bassist Lonnie Turner, who also pens the occasional tune from this segment of Miller's career, support Stevie Guitar Miller, along with co-producer (with Miller) Glyn Johns. Standout tunes are the Guild 12-string-drenched Seasons by Miller and long-time collaborator Ben Sidran, Celebration song (by Sidran) and Davis's frantically up-tempo Can't You Hear Your Daddy's Heartbeat. The showstopper tune is Miller's anti-war anthem Kow Kow on which The Steve Miller Band displays in full glory its knack for finely crafted, layered sounds that build to a climax of inspirational music and message. Miller's fluid guitar intro to this song sounds like it could have been played by Jimi Hendrix, the better-known psychedelic blues shaman. The album culminates and ties together the preceding songs, bluesy and rock-fueled folksy by turns, with the moderately commercially successful Space Cowboy. Miller has always been a musician's musician as evidenced by his collaboration with Paul McCartney (credited as Paul Ramon) on the album's closing rocker My Dark Hour with Sir Paul on vocals, bass and drums. Miller and McCartney delight in pushing each other to the limits of their talents and then bust through the sound barrier into rock nirvana as they primal scream to their hearts' content.

One of the most enjoyable elements of Miller's long and illustrious career is the way he keeps repackaging his riffs and narrative characters. My Dark Hour is the foundation for his later Fly Like An Eagle. And as noted above, the gangster that appears in many of Miller's songs, introduced in his second album, Sailor, is in full swing on this album turning the tables on "the Man" with his badass blues in order to create a peaceful and loving brave new world.

Although not a strict concept album, Brave New World's underlying theme, as expressed in Kow Kow, is that time is running out for us to turn on our "love lights" to "get things back together like they were before." If there were ever a time for good-hearted people of planet Earth to discover or rediscover this album from the early Steve Miller era, it is now. Brave New World is a satisfying blues-rock good time, sober cautionary tale and optimistic tonic to the post-modern cynicism that permeates society today. All aboard?

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps Steve's Best!, September 25, 2003

By 

dalepres "dalepres" (Park Hill, OK United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Brave New World (Audio CD)

This was not my first album as a teenager, by far, but it was my first Steve Miller album. Steve Miller's third album, Brave New World, is among the best rock and roll ever. This album, which I first got when it was originally released, has fueled a 34 year love for his music. In all that time, it still remains my favorite rock and roll album ever.

Though the original vinyl has long since been lost, every time I have rebuilt my music collection as I raised a family, Brave New World was always the first album or CD I purchased.

There are only 9 songs on the album, but there are no fillers - this is all great stuff. I am not sure why it is, but the title track, Brave New World, has never made it into any of Steve's many, many "greatest hits" compilations even though it is one of his best works ever. Of course, 6 songs out of 9 on this album regularly show up in the compiliations: Celebration Song, Kow Kow Calculator, Seasons, Space Cowboy, LT`s Midnight Dream, and My Dark Hour. My Dark Hour, by the way, includes Paul McCartney on guitar as Paul Ramone.

So with 6 out of 9 songs considered to be among his greatest hits - and the other three songs are great music as well - this album belongs in every Steve Miller Band or other classic rock and roll collection, no matter how many versions of The Joker and Fly Like An Eagle you have in the compilations.

Updated: Just for the record, track 5 is not Kow Kow. It is Kow Kow Calculator. While the track was called Kow Kow on some of the compilations later on, the original name, as it was on the LP and still is shown on this CD, is Kow Kow Calculator.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Celebration!! Everybody Trip Out!!!, November 12, 2003

By 

chris meesey Food Czar (The Colony, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Brave New World (Audio CD)

Brave New World, the third offering by the still-new Steve Miller Band, was released in 1969. Can't you tell? References to celebrations and tripping abound, making this one of the sunniest, trippiest album of the psychedelic era. (Even the album cover is sunny yellow!) The opening of the title track (and the album) is a blast - literally, a bomb blast which hearalds the start of both a fresh, enjoyable tune and a bright new beginning for the world at large. Then, great drumming by Tim Davis kickstarts "Celebration Song," another wonderful vision of a world at play. "Got Love 'Cause You Need It" sounds like it's sung by Miller's infamous Gangster of Love character, full of danger and seduction, while "Seasons" is a gorgeous acoustic ballad, as heartfelt a track as Stevie Guitar has ever recorded. Nice! "Space Cowboy," of course, is the albums BIG HIT, complete with Moog synthesizer space sounds, and a rare, excellent guitar solo from Steve M! (The primary focus of Brave New World is on the material, not solos.) Literally too, too far out! "LT's Midnight Dream" is a fantasy feast, with lyrics like "got a bulldog in my learjet, gonna teach him how to fly"! Too much! Paul McCartney of the Beatles contributes drums, bass, and vocals to the blues-rock "My Dark Hour," (he is billed as Paul Ramon; yes, that is where the band The Ramones got their name!), while "Can't You Hear Your Daddy's Heartbeat?" is a love song in double-quick time and "Kow Kow" (also known as "Kow Kow Calqulator" on the anthologies) combines more fantasy lyrics with quotes from Bobby Blue Bland's "Turn on your Love Light". Outasite!! So, if your looking for something of Steve Miller's beyond the usual, well-crafted 70's material, give Brave New World a listen or two. You may want to start your own celebration!!!