Customer Reviews

Futuristic Dragon

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

For reasons too boring to go into I've been revisiting Marc Bolan lately and what an interesting experience its proving to be. I'd bailed after Slider and whilst continuing to get the occasional kick out of a blast from the past never bothered to listen to Tanx and everything that came afterwards. But then after reading the review of Futuristic Dragon by "derblueangel" I figured I really should check this album out. Well, splash me with tomato sauce and call me a sausage roll if this isn't one dam fine set of songs.

Whats really interesting though is not the fact that here we have a bunch of richly textured songs that wail like vampires on heat but rather the way the album draws attention to the fact that a certain set of circumstances acted in concert to doom Bolan and deify his best mate Bowie.

There are remarkable parallels in the careers of Bolan and Bowie, but, where Bowie was arguably calculating and clever, Bolan was, to be frank, a bit of a tosser. Both boys started out markedly influenced by the residues of the hippie 60's with Mark all elfin and trippy and Bowie all folksy and long haired. Good friends it was nevertheless Marc who was undeniably the senior partner. Marc had hits and swooning girls whilst Bowie had 'interesting' potential. Check out the old "Jackie" magazines of the early seventies - Marc's all over them with Bowie making guest appearances. Bowie was cool'ish but that Bolan boy was sex on a stick.

Bolan clearly adored being adored (even if 90 percent of the fans were below the legal age of consent) and enthusiastically courted the media at every opportunity. In practice what this meant was a stretching the truth that only someone with a truly monstrous ego could sustain. He famously claimed to have jammed with Hendrix and taught him how to really wield that axe and that he'd spent three months in the woods in France living with a warlock learning how to cast spells. The truth about the magic is that on a weekend trip to Paris he went home with the juggling waiter who served dinner. Its unclear if he ever actually spent time with Hendrix at all.

None of this would matter were it not for the fact that the music powefully reminds us of the necessity to separate the artist from the art. Marc acted like a complete idiot because he loved the adulation but he equally clearly loved the music and wanted to push it into new territory. But, he'd made his deal with the devil. He got the fame he craved but it was almost entirely dependent on people not yet ready to follow him into a sort of funk soul that in another ten years would sound soooo right.

And on the margins, Bowie watched, learned and understood the importance of timing.

Bowie saw how one album could transform an audiance base and bring it all home. Electric Warrior cut Bolan loose from the earnest student types and gave Marc the swooning high school masses that lapped up his good looks as much as those beautifully crafted songs. Bowie took note and lo and behold we have Ziggy Stardust doing the same trick - but - with a twist. In contrast to Bolan, Bowie cut loose from the teeny boppers and aimed straight for the jugular of the very student types that Bolan had abandoned.

Tanx, and more particularly Futuristic Dragon, reveal Marc carving out a sound that was just quite simply unheard of at the time but who was there to 'get it'. Not the folks that had given Marc his start and if he seriously thought American lovers of funk and soul were going to embrace it delivered by a now pudgy former glam teenybop star from England he was even further away with the fairies than most people thought. Meanwhile, on the margins, Bowie waited.

Bowie, it would seem, genuinely loved Marc and his sound and it comes squarely to the foreground on Station to Station and Young Americans(and just by the by, check out the sax on Tanx and Futuristic Dragon if you miss the days when David actually played). What a difference a few years and and different audiance makes. Bolan is derided as having lost the plot whilst Bowie is lauded as innovative and right on the money.

We'll never know what might have been but the later Marc was clearly well on the way to capturing something unique in the way he melded together boogie, funk, soul, and a Spector'ish wall of sound that none of us had ever heard before. Maybe without what Bowie went on to achieve we wouldn't fully appreciate just what overlooked gems albums like Futuristic Dragon really are - maybe - whats certain is that its hard not to listen to these songs and curse the fates "its a rip off".

I can certainly understand that in the world of Pop, you're either hot, or you're not. After "Zinc Alloy", which many perceived as a lame "Ziggy Stardust"-styled ...(after Bowie spent so much time stealing from Bolan, ironically), I stopped buying T-Rex records. The reviews at Amazon brought me back to this one. Purportedly recorded before "Zip Gun" (which most people detest), this would've been perceived as a "Diamond Dogs" ...(complete with spoken intro, half-baked thematic concept, etc.), and perhaps by the time it came out, people hadn't even cared to listen anymore, but I must say, I love this album. I bought it three months ago, and I still listen to it every week. It's good, semi-overblown but catchy T.Rex rock. Start with the single (and bonus track) "Laser Love". It's a lost glam gem. Gloria Jones doesn't bother me a bit; this song is a blast. The first five tracks are solid, especially "All Alone" with its swinging violins (I have this perverse love of pre-Bee Gees disco, especially heavily orchestrated tunes). It gets a little soft in the middle, and then gets wonderfully odd at the end, especially with "Dreamy Lady", which is this perverse sorta lounge number that would be at home at any karaoke bar. Am I being facetious? Heck no! This album is Bolan having FUN. It's utterly charming, unpretentious, and wickedly absurd. This could inspire the next Radiohead album! Don't pass it up; it's a keeper.

In fact yeah, it does matter. I've read loads of horrible reviews for this album. I wouldn't have even entertained the idea of buying it if it wasn't for a little thing called file sharing. I downloaded the complete versions of Dawn Storm, Jupiter Liar, and Sensation Boulevard from Kaaza and gave them a listen. At first I didn't know what to make of the songs. They were so different from Electric Warrior and The Slider. It took me a couple of listens to get used to them. And then something happened. Don't really know what but I found myself humming Jupiter Liar one day and desperately wanting to own it on cd. Payday that week sent me running to the nearest record store where I had to special order the album and wait two weeks for it to arrive. The same day I brought it home I listened to it twice in its entirety. I think I put New York City on repeat. Since late August it has become a permenant staple of my most played cds. I even made a copy of the entire album on tape so I could listen to it in my car. It may actually be easier for someone who isn't familiar with Marc Bolan's other work to pick this album up and enjoy it as is. To compare it with his earlier stuff is futile 'cause by this time he was moving in a completely different direction both musically and with his life. I think that this album is his real farewell to his former life as a glam rock superstar. There are still lots of really fun lyrics here though. I guess the best way to describe the feel of the album is to relate a story involving it. A couple of weeks ago I went to visit a friend in Boston. We spent the night drinking vodka, walking around the city dolled up in fishnets and vinyl, washing down questionable pharmaceuticals with Jolt Cola all the while smoking French Silk Cut Ciagrettes which my friend carried around in a little black ciagrette case. After emerging from The Linwood, a little punk club with a couple of fashionably seedy boys on our arms we got a ride back to her place just outside of the city. I forced my copy of Futuristic Dragon into the tape player of the hapless driver (I think it was her roomate but I can't be sure) and as Jupiter Liar segued into Chrome Sitar something strange happened. I think that the mood of Chrome Sitar kind of summed up our evening 'cause we sat there tired and staring out of the windows in awe as the lights of the 3 a.m. city passed over our heads. It was a really washed out, happy feeling like your body is ready to shut down 'cause you haven't slept in a week but you've had a really amazing night doing all this decadent, stupid stuff that you never should have done in the first place and loved every minute of it. I think that Futuristic Dragon might just be Marc Bolan's 3 a.m. in a big US city heading home after the party and smiling at the thought of his nice warm bed album.

Certainly not futuristic, but the strongest set of tracks since 1972. I don't understand what was Marc trying to make, a concept album out of a dragon as the main focus of his story or was he in two worlds, we remember his world of Tolkienesque dreams and his other world were he considers himself to be a bionic soulboy. Well all I can say is Bolan was trying to get back to his roots and he nearly pulled of a good record, but that wasn't to be. The album Futuristic Dragon is very complicated and only has a few tracks which make you feel good, songs like Chrome Sitar, All Alone and Sensation Boulevard are excellent. The title intro is superb with an amazing guitar riff and Bolan seems to be coming into his own. The best track on this album would be the top 20 hit single "New York City", partly because Flo and Eddie were doing the backing vocals (for newcomers, these two were former members of the band "Turtles" and were responsible for T-Rex's amazing backing vocals during T-Rex's heyday in the early 70's). Apart from this, songs which are gullible are My Little Baby, Jupiter Liar and Dreamy Lady. The other tracks are better off in the Bolan song rack as a collection and are not good songs, I say this because Bolan's girl friend Gloria Jones who had now taken over the backing vocals of T-Rex made Bolan's songs sound more soul and sour . Marc being a professional could have done better. I know Gloria Jones was a soul singer, but she doesn't give a good performance on Marc's tracks.
Coming back to the Futuristic Dragon Album, you could buy it, but don't expect the music to give you a lift. If you really want to see Marc Bolan making a come back, then buy the "Dandy in the Underground" album since it can be rated among his best work.

"Futuristic Dragon" brings Marc Bolan and "T. Rex" back to a more familiar sound that he left after "The Slider" album. A lot of catchy tracks on this album, "Sensation Boulevard", "Laser Love", "Jupiter Liar", "Dreamy Lady" and "New York City". The album is leaning toward a more funkadelic sound. I find that I listen to "Electric Warrior", "The Slider", then skip past "Tanx" and "Zinc Alloy" to get to "Futuristic Dragon". It's catchy and upbeat. "Theme For A Dragon" is a real nice melody too. The All Music database gives this album a 2 and 1/2 star out of 5. I'd say 4 and 1/2 out of 5. If your getting into T. Rex then add this one to your list after you've absorbed "The Slider" and "Electric Warrior". Then on to "Dandy and The Underworld". (Don't forget his early stuff too.)

I would've given it a 5 except that the bonus tracks are just ok. The album proper, Futuristic Dragon (intro) -Casual Agent, is super tight and a definate Marc Bolan gem.

It's more disco and funky but still retains that sort of trashy fun sound that's so loveable on 'Tanx'. I have 16 T-Rex albums which either makes me an expert or just plain crazy (probably both). This is truely his last great album. There are songs from the 1 or 2 albums afterwards, but basically this is the final complete gem of the late Marc Bolan!

The second album 'Dazzling Arrainment' is pretty good as well. Some of the earlier paired down versions of songs on 'Futuristic Dragon' sound just as good as the originals but produced in a much more paired down raw format.

In short: get these songs and listen to them immediately! It's good for you!

Marc Bolan, the mastermind behind the whole glam rock era always compliments himself with mystical magical lyrics and a lewd british voice that could never be duplicated. In futuristic dragon, Bolan really goes all out with catchy guitar riffs and vocals that could just make anyone ooze in amazement. This album, however doews have one major flaw... Marc's American girlfriend, Gloria Jones (who is the soprano usually backing marc up) needs to be reminded of her position as a back up singer, not a co-lead. Her overpowering, yet lovely voice, sometimes drowns Marc's out and can make a song that was supposed to be mellow and dramatic a loud, alert song. This album really demonstrates the pure genious of Marc Bolan and i would reccommend it to my closest friends:) ~~Rock on~~

After listening to "Zinc Alloy," I figured that it would just go downhill from there. I was right about "Bolan's Zip Gun," but "Futuristic Dragon" truly surprised me. It does have a few tracks that everyone except the seriously dedicated fans will skip, but there rest are truly excellent songs that are just as good as anything from "Electric Warrior" or "The Slider." This certainly isn't better than "Electric Warrior" or its two successors, but it is as close as it comes.

Futuristic Dragon is one of my more recent T.Rex purchases and is not one I have to play regularly. It seems as though this is a compilation of recorded tracks and aborted ideas between 1975 and 1976 and a tired Bolan put these tracks together instead of creating an album. Half the album could be the unfinished work of a concept album, hence the tracks 'Futuristic Dragon', 'Calling All Destroyers' and 'Theme For A Dragon'. I understand many of the tracks were recorded around the time of Bolan's Zip Gun and Bolan delayed the release of FD so as not to crowd the market. This would explain Mickey Finn's very audible bongos,which had become very hard to pick out in prevous albums, even though he is not credited in the album. Most tracks seem badly produced but in general this is a good album which lacks any real standout songs and originality.

Futuristic Dragon is a good if somewhat predictable return to form. A more classic T Rex sound is heard on this album. the songs are also much stronger than previous albums and Bolans voice sems almost back on form. Sometimes the ideas on the album don't always work such as Dawn Storm, but more often than not, the sheer catchiness of this album will win you over. sometimes the prduction can be a little messy, but with great songs like Chrome sitar, All Alone, Calling all Destroyers this is easy to forgive. for those who like classic Bolan boogie, Jupiter Liar shows that Bolan was never an Eric Clapton on guitar, but then else has ever has made it sound quite like him. A very easy going album. some great tunes, and usual those bizzare lyrics! This album could have oen with better production, but then none of us are perfect, well worth a listen. If you don't believe me, check out the samples on this site!