Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
SUBLIME SOFT ROCK, May 25, 2003
Everyone must be familiar with Baker Street, Rafferty's massive 1978 hit with its soulful sax and poetic lyrics. This collection includes other hits like the more uptempo Right Down The Line, the title track of his City To City album and the beautiful flowing Night Owl. It's a pity his brilliant song Shipyard Town has been omitted as it's also very melodic and memorable. His voice is not unlike that of Paul Simon and his style pretty much in the singer-songwriter or soft rock genre, like Simon's early solo work or like James Taylor. The arrangements are always graceful and elegant, ensuring a brilliant interplay between his laid-back voice and the instruments. If you like gentle soft rock, you'll love this collection of exquisite songs.
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1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Sophisticated, inventive, ambitious, intelligent. Classic., May 10, 2005
I like the entire City to City album. I think every single song on it is good, not a bad one in the bunch.
Of course I love Baker Street. There is a lot going on in that track, sophisticated and excellent. Comparing it with the (obscenely bad) Foo Fighters cover shows both the weaknesses of the Fighters' arrangement as well as the talent, polish, intelligence, and diligence of Rafferty's producer.
I personally don't like solo sax much and so it doesn't touch me as much as it seems to touch others, but even so I can see that the sax intro and other sax parts are electrifying. I respect this production choice because for so many people the sax is the only part of the song they identify and according to some reviews the sax bought most of that copious radio air-time in 1978. On the other hand, it's a shame to see this overstated sound overshadow the rest of the beautiful song in peoples' minds.
The swooping guitars are awesome and yet subtle and fill a crucial spot in the intro melody. The guitar solo is masterful. Much of the time in the solo is taken up with only a few sustained and repeated notes and the bulk of the solo is made up of bends, trills, swoops, dives, and inventive tremelos. Each note of the minimal note count speaks out to us in important ways. It reminds me of lyrics that say volumes with only a few words. It's one of my all time favorite guitar solos.
The two featured analog synthesizer sounds are way cool. The synth during the verse sounds like falling leaves or water. The bass synth sound that counterpoints the vocal during the chorous, again, is inventive: an interesting, unusual sound, delightful instrumental melodic counterpoint to the vocal, a melodic sound in this region of the bass territory is also unusual in pop. You usually have the bass drum and the bass guitar in the bass region and that's about it. This synth sound and melody is something like a `cello line, lending an orchestral feel while still using pop instruments.
The lyrics to Baker Street are good, but I wouldn't say great. They give an overall impression of loneliness, futility and yearning for something better in the future. What's there is good but it's not great because the song does not tell a complete story. This is a concept album and every lyric addresses these issues of loneliness and itinerant living on the road. Considering the entire album's lyrics as a whole pushes them up a notch as ambitious, intelligent, very good, and maybe you could consider the whole as a complete story. They fall short of something blisteringly great like "Eleanor Rigby" (The Beatles) or "She Always a Woman" or "AllenTown" (Billy Joel).
Regarding the Foo Fighters' cover version: The Foo Fighters skip the swooping guitars during the intro melody and you can hear it as dead space, causing a drop in intensity there resulting in an undesirable volume pumping effect. The Fighters copy the guitar solo note for note, what's the point? We've heard that already, and much better, so why bother? Granted I'm not that familiar with post 1989 Pearl Jam clone musical styles so I might be missing something, but to me the Fighters' guitar version of the sax intro melody is just plain wrong. The rhythm is wrong and corny, the accents are in the wrong place, and the guitar sound is so anemic when compared to the sax. Why would a band of the Fighters' stature cover a song anyway? The whole thing is just wrong.
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by Gerry Rafferty 
