Customer Reviews

Provision

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is one of the purest examples of perfect 1980s alternative pop. Each song stands on its own, you REMEMBER these songs, and the sonics are astounding. Frankly, I'm appalled that some of you out there are putting this one up against the awful Anomie & Bonhomie and claiming the latter is superior? In ten years I know I'll STILL be listening to Provision while people will be throwing away copies of Anomie because the rap will bore them to tears. Provision delivers, and since 1988 it sounds as fresh as ever. The superior track "Sugar & Spice" is the funkiest tune this side of Gary Numan's "Young Heart." For true collectors, hunt down the 12" mixes of "Boom! There She Was", "First Boy In This Town (Lovesick)", and even "Oh Patti" for the beautiful instrumental version featuring Miles Davis. Yes, each Scritti Politti album changes a bit (just like Everything But The Girl likes to do), and I still come back to Provision for complete satisfaction! Maybe this will help: On my radio show most requests for their songs came from Provision over any of the others, so you rap fanatics aren't exactly more "in the know" on musical quality as you think. Provision is an accomplished achievement and hard to top.

I have everything Scritti every did, and I loved them then and I still love them now. It's sad this album wasn't the critical & commercial juggernaut that Cupid & Pysche 85 was, but Provision has many of its own charms: crystaline production, funky Vocoder skills from the late Roger, and that keen sense of intellectual wordplay missing from so much of pop, esp 80s music - Green & Crew did their best, but sadly most audiences had already moved onto rap? Boom!, Sugar & Spice, Oh Patti, oh they're all pop/R&B perfection - and this from a frail white guy from the UK with the helium man/boy voice...BUT the collection, even with its extended mixes, isn't complete without the BEST track off the Provision sessions that did NOT appear on the LP or CD, but rather a stunning, oft forgotten B-side (I believe from Lovesick?) - the track, of course, is A WORLD COME BACK TO LIFE and it harkens back to the joys of Cupid & Pysche: push/pull sonic dynamics, an instantly addictive chorus, and those angelic breathy vocals and so damn funky but icy at the same time - a delicate balance, a stunning album, a seminal band - buy now while you can - WHY is this OOP?

This is an amazing pop CD. The great Miles Davis played on this CD, together with Marcus Miller. I guess they were returning a favour when Miles Davis covered Scritti's "Perfect Way".

This is one of those rare albums that pulls you out of that 'BLUE FUNK' we all feel from time to time. I keep this CD in my car for the inevitable traffic jam and the unavoidable Monday morning commute. From the powerhouse "Boom! There she was" to the airy almost dream quality of "Oh Patti" this CD delivers emotional salvation. I recommend this wholeheartedly and it can not be deteceted on a drug test either.

I have owned both this and Cupid since their first CD releases. I still reach for Provision today. You cannot fault the sonics. The bass soars to the depths and yet is fast and controlled and the treble synths are spine tingling! Nice soundstaging to boot.

The CD puts many modern pop recordings to shame - definitely a yardstick - and definitely a piece to show off a capable system

On reflection, I think that musically Scritti are at their best here if only because of "Oh Patti". They probably will be remembered as an "also ran" but for this classic ballad which takes a glorious extended outing at the end of the album with an additional mix.

I'm still thinking that I would rather hear this and the delicious "Lovesick" more than any of the also loved tunes from Cupid and Psyche.

I was disappointed by their late nineties album...

It's weird -- Green Gartside hates this album, ostensibly because it was difficult to make and not a commercial success, the fallout of which sent him into seclusion for eight or nine years. It certainly isn't quite as thrilling as "Cupid & Pysche 85," but it does have some high points, notably "Boom! There She Was" and "Sugar and Spice," both featuring the amazing Vocoder work of the late Roger Troutman. It is a very self-conscious record, very pretty-pretty. I liked it more in '88 than I do now, but anything by Green and company is worth buying -- so buy it.

I am not a big 1980s synth pop fan--my teenage years but that is a WHOLE other story--but being a music man, I never wholesale dismiss a genre.

So the critera I use for this music is, if hearing it played by a guitar or panio rock band, would it work

Well, Scriti Politi's songs absolutely would, using any instrumental treatment. Grant Garsdale is such a great writer, the songs have a beautiful, subtle, sophitacation. Some artists flash comeplexity. Garsdale, like the Beatles, hide great art in the guise of pop songs.

No further evidence than Provision is needed. This is pop, but pop with nice, subtle changes: tracks that may not hit the gut right away. But flowing with repeated listens, the music works on the heart AND head.

This is ear candy, but with lots of nutriants: these songs have a lot going on under the gleem, and when you take the time to listen a few times, these hidden hooks grab and don't let go. The synth treatment actually serves the music: the shine increases the attractions to Garsdales amazing melodic instints.

Provision drags a little on Bam Salute, and Best Thing Ever and Philosophy Now are fun, but not quite peak material. However, the first four songs and Oh, Patti are so heartbreakingly beautiful that listening to them in succession has taken on a ritualistic position in my life. Boom! is a giddy, hyper-synchopated rush of elation. Eminently danceable. Overnite can make you cry. Perhaps the most yearning song I've ever heard. Absolutely gorgeous. Lovesick is like a second dose of Boom!. All That We Are is heavenly and lyrically a complete mind bender. Oh, Patti is a dreamy-eyed classic and Sugar and Spice is a guilty pleasure if there ever was one. I bought Provision on vinyl before I had heard a note of any Scritti stuff. I'd seen the Scritti name mentioned alongside other abrassive post-punk bands like Joy Division, which I was listening to at the time. The first spin made me feel completely embarassed, sitting alone in my room. The cutesy pie tunes and wimpy singing was the last thing I thought I wanted to hear. But I kept coming back. It was the tunes, full of strange chord changes and bouncy beats that first hooked me. I wasn't sold on it as a masterpiece until a rather focused session with the headphones on. Every sound is sculpted and polished for infinite nuance. Green's disembodied voice seems to be speaking directly to you from a different realm of cryptic wordplay and robotic longing. No lyric should be taken at face value, and every sound should be savoured at length. It is a singular creative statement, unique as the mind that realized. If you can get a copy with World Come Back To Life (a masterpiece of its own), you will be holding your new favorite record. Cupid and Psyche is essentially perfect, but it lacks a certain strangeness and obscurity that defines Provision. Listen closely, and most important, listen again.

Green Gartside is a perfectionist. This is why he has disappeared. After the success of his first major label release, he and his group Scritti Politti returned to the studio to record the second CD PROVISION. Despite its similarities; razor sharp cutting and splicing, crystalline beats and manicured "little boy" vocals, the album was a critical failure. This is sad, because the CD is NOT a bad collection. Maybe they tried too hard to recreate the sound, or maybe the public just wasn't interested in this androgynous sounding pop hopeful. The music is solid, in a crispy sort of way, like toffee; very sweet and sticky, but with an edge and an ability to wedge in between your teeth and leave you tasting it for hours afterwards. "Boom! There She Was" was a fine piece of music. Although it was almost over the top by Scritti standards, it still held on to the general rule, "keep it simple." Probably the best tracks are "Lovesick" and "Best Thing Ever", just for their friendly approachable nature, another signature aspect of the band. In many ways, this album tries to one-up "Cupid & Psyche" by adding a layer of toughness, more beats, harder rhythms, more aggressive basslines, etc. The end result is pleasing, but not as comfortable as the first release. Scritti Politti is not gone, and a new album is being nursed to fighting strength as we speak. Until this happens, put CUPID & PSYCHE and PROVISION in your multi-CD player and play them together on random. The songs are comfortable together, and are offset well by the inclusion of the hard-to-find Rough Trade CD "Songs To Remember", a cool "pre-digital" Scritti outing. For even more sparse and rhythm-heavy flavor, toss ABC's "How To Be A Zillionaire" and Squeeze's forgotten 1984 release "Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti" into the mix. Don't just listen.. Enjoy your music.

Although "Provision" could not nearly top the success, overall quality and innovation of 1984's Cupid & Psyche '85...it is still a very tight, commercialized effort from Green Gartside & Company. Thanks to Aretha Franklin's Producer Arif Mardin's rich layering of tracks and overall polish of the final product, "Provision" still scores three solid winners; the highly danceable and infectious, "Boom! There She Was," frat-boy fresh, "First Boy in This Town," and the memorably haunting, "Oh Patti."

Compared to "Cupid & Psyche'85"..."Provision" clearly shows how much Gartside and (David) Gamson's sound has matured. The audio production is mastered perfectly and way ahead of it's time, for 1988. For a pop album- "Provision" sounds just as good turned up loud, as it is quietly on your own headphones. Unfortunately, music today simply does not have the sonic quality of this underrated 1988 gem.

Gartside's foray into rap and other "experiments" hurt his subsequent releases badly. His latest 2006 CD, "White Bread Black Beer" sounds too much like a radical departure from his sharply-dressed, pretty boy youth and vitality. What can you expect? Green is finally no longer "green."

Buy this album, and keep it as a testimony to how versatile and dynamic Scritti Politti ONCE was.