Customer Reviews

Caricature the Box

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This is the ultimate set for Gilbert O'Sullivan fans. Its too bad that was only in print for a short time. It has all of the hits, plus many great album gems. It also has very early stuff before he released his first album which is really worth listening to. I will treasure this collection always. It is rather expensive if you can find it from a seller, but darn worth it.

...No verdict has been returned! Gilbert - as he's better known - has had a long and prolific enough career to merit a "hits, misses and rarities" boxed set.. But why should a person buy "Caricature"? (WARNING: this review diverges at times from the subject under discussion)
In the past decade or so, Morrisey, Jarvis Cocker, Rick Witter (what do you mean you don't remember him?) and one of Lee and Herring have all spared a kind word for Gilbert, or covered his songs. But the chances that he will be reclaimed from the dustbin or history and lionized as an all-time-classic cult figure remain remote.
There are more than enough serious charges against him, that have to be addressed (and, alas, upheld) - of bad taste (musically and lyrically), poor craftsmanship, lack of musical and lyrical scope, questionable social politics. All good reasons why an affection for his music will remain a guilty secret, a personal foible that one hesitates to own up to.
He's been accused of being an unwordly narrow-minded conservative country-bumpkin type. And, let's face it, some of his interview statements uphold that stereotype - but, forgetting the "country bumpkin" element, you can say the same of Morrissey! In any case, he is aware of his reactionary/retrogressive tendencies, and has exaggerated them in song - in order to create a comical, prematurely-aged misfit persona for himself. In many songs he presents himself as a kind of Tony Hancock/Frank Spencer amalgam - someone you wouldn't wish to live next door to, or lodge with, but someone whose failures are amusing when viewed from a safe distance. (Complaint #1: It's a shame the boxed set doesn't include any of the songs where he boasts about his inability to control his tongue or tell white lies, like "At Least I'm Honest").
He's also been accused of misogyny - and, alas, he is prone to a sexist remark now and then in interviews. You'd never mistake him for Jim Davidson, but...there are a surprising number of putdown songs like "Get Down" (which works the woman/dog metaphor), or "Marriage Machine" (which aims to clarify the anti-matrimonial theme of his earlier skinflint's-wedding classic "Matrimony", but ends up as a tirade against the narrator's last wife), or "Having Said That" (where he patronizingly sends off an ex-partner, even as he pretends to retract obviously-heartfelt statements like "love is just a load of crap"). But these are in keeping with his character, his socially-inept misfit persona. (Complaint #2: It's a shame the boxed set doesn't include "You Never Listen To Reason", one of his many "backhanded love songs").
The reputation for misogyny mainly stems from two songs, included here: "Can't Think Straight" is typical of his in-character songs, having slapped his woman in the face during an argument, he's contrite, but doesn't fully comprehend the implications of his actions. "A Woman's Place" - which appears to argue, straight facedly, that a woman's place is in the home - is harder to explain or excuse. He's mischievously defended the song's sentiment at times, to wind people up, or claimed to be singing "isn't at home" rather than "is in the home"! His honest explanation is that it was common at the time to hear such statements from "the lads down at the pub", but most of them would never have the nerve to say "I believe a woman's place is in the home" to a wife or girlfriend. So, the songwriter says to himself, what if one of "the lads" seriously believes it, and doesn't care who knows? "There's never been a song about that in the charts before - it's different, isn't it!" Actually, "A Woman's Place" flopped, on both sides of the Atlantic.
So, the other charges. He confines himself to a safe straight and narrow path, musically and lyrically - sometimes recycling titles and bits of lyrics. Millions are guilty of the same sins, the problem perhaps is the source material he works with. Since before the first album he's been alternating vaudeville/1930s-40s pastiches, adult-contemporary ballads and...just the occasional rocker or vaguely funky uptempo number. Lyrically when he's not writing in his misfit persona he can be as mawkishly sentimental as McCartney or Manilow - the fact that one of his biggest hits, "Clair", was a familial love song, not a romantic one, says it all. And sometimes his love songs and in-character songs merge. (Complaint #3: It's a shame that the boxed set doesn't include "My Love And I" which goes so far as to pine for a bygone age "when making love meant holding hands", or the hopefully self-explanatory "Two's Company, Three Is Allowed").
Seldom does he write a "political" song - and, even more seldom, a political song which is entirely serious and not written to accommodate the misfit persona. (Complaint #4: None of these political songs are included here, not even the classic "The Luck of the Irish" - yet the half-joking "Doesn't It Make You Sick" is included).
Again like McCartney, when he's not soppy or sarky, he sometimes writes sheer unbridled nonsense. Never mind "ooo-wakka-doo-wakka-day", try "Mr Moody's Garden" ("a man who loves his knees so much he's framed them, in a jar") or the word-associative/name-dropping epic "Houdini Said", which also finds him self-parodically wondering why "young people take part in those rites which, by all men in blue, are the targets to destroy". (Complaint #5: it's a shame the boxed set doesn't include "Victor E" - or "January Git", which is full to bursting with "who's-who are you?" and "without a doubt-ing Thomas!")
Which brings us to what may be his saving grace, or his worst character trait - his wordplay. There's a school of thought that says that a person who relies heavily on puns, misquotes and other word-games has nothing meaningful to say, and Gilbert could be one of their Exhibit As. This is the man whose album titles include "Pianoforeplay" and, returning to his favorite theme of music industry bashing, "Singer Sowing Machine". The only songwriter I can think of with a similar addiction to puns, non-sequiturs and homophones, is Jim Bob (ex-Carter USM) - and he uses his technique in the service of "serious-message songs". Gilbert's style is more frivolous - "Came To See Me Yesterday" goes to such great lengths to avoid a certain obvious rhyme, and ends up meaning nothing. Like the early "Mr Moody's Garden" it also points up his gimmick of deliberately writing lines which don't scan with the music ("a bicycle made for one...hundred people!"), or deliberately mis-stressing words - as if he found it easier to create internal rhymes than external rhymes. (Complaint #6: it's a shame that the boxed set doesn't include "You Can't Con Crete", or...that one about how "mixamatosis isn't the way you cross your feet!")
So, having said that - The music spread across these three CDs is obviously limited in its appeal. Maybe I like it because it appeals to my particular sense of alienation, vulnerability, awkwardness. But those listeners who are not harbouring a peculiar fetish for grouchy misanthropic born-losers, and amateurish songwriting in which over-ambitious lyrics can barely be contained within their musical frameworks, should steer clear.