Customer Reviews

Jobriath

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

 

 

I have been fortunate enough to have been introduced to Jobriath through one of my favorite artists, Morrissey. I purchased "Lonely Planet Boy" and found the compilation to be of such high quality as to prompt me to dig deeper and purchase both Jobriath releases, "Jobriath" and "Creatures of the Street."

Other reviewers have made negative comments regarding Jobriath and his music; That Jobriath is a second-rate Bowie or "Fake" Jagger (as if -- with all due respect -- Jagger was ever "authentic" in his blues affectations). None of these things are true: Jobriath is a talented pianist and musician with a distinctive voice and vision.

A listen to the debut eponymous album verifies this assertion. The album's opener, "Take Me I'm Yours," sets the tone for the album. It is a walk down the seedier side of city and psyche and pre-dates the sentiments of groups like the New York Dolls in its unabashed trashy glamour. It is true: Jobriath was the Real Thing when it comes to being Queer, Street and Proud. As the same time, the musicianship on the album shows a delicacy and virtuosity that equals or exceeds that of albums like "Ziggy Stardust..." or "Aladdin Sane." I feel confident saying this even as a disciple of Bowie and his music.

Yes, folks, it is possible that there can be more than one Glam Superstar. So what if Jobriath didn't reach the pinnacles of stardom in his age? His music deserves a serious re-evaluation without the charges of fakery or the underlying current of homophobia.

It is more than true that Jobriath and his music are before -- and possibly outside of -- his time or any time. But his is music of passion, fun, beauty, nastiness, tenderness and violence. The Sacred and the Profane is what makes a work of art transcendent, and I hear this in Jobriath's music.

In sum, I highly recommend both of Jobriath's albums for fans of Bowie, T. Rex, Roxy Music and their spiritual heirs including the Smiths and Suede.

Rock on, Jobriath.

Thirty-five years after its initial release, it's hard to grasp the critical invective that followed this artist's solo debut. Taken on its musical merits, this 1973 release is a gem: an inspired album of glam-rock that drank deeply of Bowie's theatricality, Queen's grandiosity, Lou Reed's decadence, and T. Rex's trashy glamour. Jobriath even personally expanded upon the gender-bending sexuality of the times by outing himself as the first-ever openly gay rock star. Without considering the overblown promotional hype that surrounded this album, it's hard to imagine its failure, and how the critically ignored follow-up album all but consigned Jobriath to the footnotes of rock `n' roll.

Jobriath's pop music story began the Los Angeles tribe of the stage musical Hair. He subsequently became lead singer, songwriter, guitarist and keyboardist of the Los Angeles group Pidgeon, combining stagey California vocal-harmony sunshine production pop with baroque and psychedelic influences. The group's self-titled 1969 release on Decca failed to fly, and Jobriath languished in obscurity for another four years. Fortuitously (or perhaps just legendarily), the rejection of his audition tape by Clive Davis led to a chance encounter with industry veteran Jerry Brandt. Brandt's promotion of Jobriath met brick walls at A&M and Elektra, and the artist was finally left to produce his own debut with engineer Eddie Kramer. Jobriath scored the sessions (teaching himself orchestration in the process), recorded in London with a full orchestra, and created a surprisingly grand and muscular rock album.

Had the album been allowed to sell itself, things might have been different, but in circling back to Elektra (and becoming label founder Jac Holzman's last signing), Jobriath and Brandt unleashed a publicity wave of gigantic billboards, hyperbolic press ("Elvis, The Beatles, Jobriath") and plans for a fantastical stage show that never materialized. Jobriath's space-oriented fantasies were not unlike Bowie's, but his theatricality was more finely attuned to American entertainments such as Tin Pan Alley and Hollywood. The nostalgic piano-and-vocal "Movie Queen," for example, speaks more to Irving Berlin and Cole Porter (whose names Jobriath would combine a few years later for his lounge lizard persona "Cole Berlin") than to then-contemporary hard-rock influences.

But even with Jobriath's feints to the past, the album rocks with dramatic, high-register vocals, scorching electric guitars, thundering piano, and a soulful backing chorus. The disc opens with an edgy, obsessive love song, but one that's more Jim Steinman grand than Lou Reed (i.e., "Venus in Furs") cold. The low piano notes and backing chorus of "Be Still" give way to more lyrical passages and Jobriath's fascination with outer space threads its way into the lyrics. Back on Earth, the proto-rock-rap "World Without End" takes on religion, hypocrisy, prophesy and reincarnation, analogizing the latter to looping repeats of vintage films, and "Earthling" essays an alien's point-of-view.

Bowie's vocal influence is heard on "Space Clown" amid crashing circus sound effects and calliope themes woven into the background. On "I'm A Man" you can hear the theatrical vocal and arrangement style Ray Davies' developed for his rock operas, with music hall dynamics instilling grandeur into the productions. Jobriath paints a poetic picture of a rainy day on "Inside," sketching the chill, splash and soak from the confines of a warm, dry perch, and "Rock of Ages" decorates its salute-to-roots with the squealing electric guitar leads of glam. The album closes with the moody, tortured soul of "Blow Away (A Peaen for P.I.T.)."

When his grandiose tour of European opera houses failed to materialize, the dilettantish claims to rock music's crown sparked an inevitable backlash. Stateside critics had been generally kind to the album, but UK critics dismissed it amid the surrounding hype. A follow-up album, Creatures of the Street, faired even less well, prompting Jobriath's retirement and rendering him a rock 'n' roll footnote who passed away in 1983. With this reissue, the audience that never found Jobriath can now hear him outside the cloud of controversy. While this isn't the game-changing album its publicity promised, it is a superb glam-rock album that deserved a broader hearing than it was originally afforded. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

Long forgotten, originally overhyped, reviled, and terminally underrated, JOBRIATH has had a mini-renaissance thanks in large part to the admiration of MORRISSEY who collected tracks from JOBRIATH's only two albums on his Lonely Planet Boy collection, including a previously unreleased song. That collection was followed by the rerelease of JOBRIATH's two albums (due to contractual obligations, JOBRIATH was unable to release anymore new material and languished in obscurity, writing and recording unreleased material until his early death in 1983).

The great Rock voice is not necessarily a great voice (NEIL YOUNG and BOB DYLAN to mention just two come to mind) and though JOBRIATH's voice is a bit shrill and nasal, it's no more offensive than, say, ELTON JOHN's and frequent comparisons to MICK JAGGER seem unwarranted to me. JOBRIATH could certainly sing well enough to get his point across. I will say that it's the songs that showcase JOBRIATH's untapped potential, astute songwriting ability, and innate musicianship. Also unfairly compared to DAVID BOWIE because of BOWIE's otherworldly persona at the time, JOBRIATH most certainly took a cue from BOWIE as evinced by songs like "Space Clown" and "Morning Star Ship" and his onstage costumes and antics (check out YouTube for a pair of rare Midnight Special clips). The piano, vocals, and quality songs are reminiscent of ELTON JOHN, but there really was no one quite like JOBRIATH, who, like BILLY JOEL, may have been best pegged as a displaced Broadway composer. Here there is drama, humor, and touching insights reflecting self deprecation, aggrandizement, and sorrow.

Still an easy target, openly gay (at a time when such revelations may have been fashionable, but hardly commercial) JOBRIATH is the lost American Glam-Rock god, the most tragic flash-in-the-pan that I can think of, but nearly 4 decades later, well worth a listen. He wrote beautiful tunes, intelligent lyrics, and personal indictments of the hypocrisy and disappointment he saw around him, reveled in seedy street anthems, rocked with the best of them, and welcomed his audience to embrace self expression. Come in out' the rain, don't be a fool. JOBRIATH may be gone a quarter of a century, but his music, finally, lives on.

Buy this and Creatures of the Street at the same time. You'll be happy that you did but sad that Jobriath recorded so little.

The release of Jobriath's two albums provides a much needed footnote to a man who wanted to be something, pushed to the barb-wire fence as hard as he could, and wound up being the forgotten body everyone in the more androgynous 80's climbed across. I can recommend Jobriath's CDs to historical completest of either glam rock or gay subculture, with this 1973 debut the better of the two.

Jobriath had ambition to burn and a serious Bowie jones (titles like "Space Clown" and "Earthling" are dead giveaways themselves) and major theatrics. It's more than telling that Jobriath had done time in the rock musical "Hair," and if you've ever Googled his video for "Space Clown," his showiness comes to view. That particular song's calliope and sound effects make it a standout on this album as well.

Flirting and engaging both with eroticism and his homosexuality ("I'm A Man"), "Jobriath" can now be viewed away from the oceanic hype that derailed Jobriath's career. Had he not been catapulted into the scene and given time to develop organically, he might have become the fabulous extra-terrestrial artist he so obviously aspired to be. Still, there's a lot to be said for what Jobriath accomplished in his brief fling with success and his eventual notoriety. As a Glam Rock footnote, this CD and Creatures of the Street (or the compilation Lonely Planet Boy) are grand statements of ambition, if not success.

I first bought this album in 1973/74 right after it came out on the wave of the new "Glam Rock" phenomenon that was really only embraced by a few in this country. It floored me to say the least! Full of sexual inuendos for both straight and gay alike, it just soared (and still does) into full flight with some of the best studio session playing and engineering that any vinyl or CD can offer. The first song,"take me i'm yours is an excellent opener for the rest of the album with the opening line " I'll do any thing for you or to you, I'm a fool for you dear fantasy"!!! The whole Album is a mix of unique songs of different pacings and speeds and does not have any musical flat spots like many older musical works...in fact it is quite "busy" on both ballad and up-tempo songs as well...i guess it has a "roller coaster" style like a vintage Elton John album with full rock band, accompnied by horns, female backing vocals, and great piano playing. Each song portrays a different mood and story, and they are all blended together with great sequence. And you can understand almost all the lyrics!!! So sad that all the lyrics are not included as in the vinyl album...but the CD reproduction is better than the Vinyl!!! I will leave the story of Jobriath to some on else...this album is the 'Bomb"!!!

The other reviews capture his sad story and his amazing musicianship, so I'll just say he was ahead of his time: wilder, gayer, more aggressive than Bowie, Mott the Hoople, TRex and Lou Reed, wrapped in an unapologetically gay package. "I'm a man" is as fierce as you want to be, starting with elegant soft self-definitions and ending with a macho roar:"And I can love you." When I first heard this album, I thought he was going to be HUGE, and then he faded, a victim of hype and homophobia. Had he made it, think of the competition he'd have been for Bowie, who adopted his Pierrot look years later on Space Oddity. Careful rock historians can doubtless find other musical and visual borrowings in the world of rock he influenced but was ignored by.