Customer Reviews

Social Studies

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

 

 

A collection of songs written over about a ten year period on the latest fads and fashions, about as far from his usual stuff as you could get. An informal survey of Loudon fans had them all agreeing that this wasn't his best stuff, but no agreement on which songs were representative of decline in quality.

I offer this opinion: They're all good, but how you view them has a lot to do with how personally you take the issue being addressed.

Hate the (now common) practice of digging up a dead musicians tapes to record new songs? "What Gives?" is bound to resonate.

A smoker forced to relocate to the streets in the current atmosphere of "no smoke tolerance"? "New Street People" is the song for you.

The strongest songs on the album are probably those which are still startlingly relevant, whether through the cleverness of the songwriter or by accident of current events. "Leap of Faith" and "Inaugural Blues" apply depressingly to the current election. "Bad Man" and "Christmas Morning", about troubles with dictators and the middle east, will probably never go out of fashion. "Tonya's Twirls", though about ice skater Tonya Harding, has a nice twist in it that makes one reflect on the Olympics in general. "Carmine Street" and "Pretty Good Day So Far" are fair estimates of what being exposed to the news media can do to a person, both good and bad.

You probably won't like all the songs or think some of them are just "so so", but it's almost guaranteed to be two or three on here that will be "worth the price of admission alone".

I heard Loudon sing most of these songs at the Cactus Cafe in Austin, Texas last month. AS usual, I was blown away by his wit, humor, sensitivity and musical prowess. Mr. Wainwright, no matter how you spell his name, is a real charmer.

The album opens with What gives, which pokes fun at musical legends of the past, many of them now dead. I confess that I fail to see what message Loudon was trying to get across but it's a good trip down memory lane so I don't mind.

The remaining songs are much easier to understand. Some of them may seem dated but they are often interesting for what they symbolize. For example, Tonya's twirls (about the ice-skater, Tonya Harding) reminds us about the pressures of competitive sport and the cheating that some are tempted into.

Other songs deal with smokers, the trial of O J Simpson, Santa Claus, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Saddam Hussein and premium telephone lines. Loudon is sympathetic to smokers as they face ever more restrictions but pours scorn on the others.

More seriously, Carmine Street is about somebody barricading themselves inside their house because of rioting in the streets. It was about Los Angeles but would be just as relevant to riots in London or anywhere else.

With an album like this, it is difficult to know whether to recommend it or not. I enjoy listening to it occasionally despite the fact that most of the events that inspired the songs are old news. I try to relate them to something topical and in that way I still find most of them relevant, therefore still amusing.

Louden Wainwright iii has taken me on a musical tour of US politics & society in the 1990's. From O.J. to Tonya Harding to Slick Willy to Y2K to Saddam to the Balkans, he nails the decade lyrically. I've been waiting on this album for years. Jesse Helms won't like this and neither will Bill. But I do!!!

I've heard a lot of his cd's, but i think this one is his best. he songs give you a whole new outlook on life. his song 'pretty good day' lets you know how good ppl in the US have life. and the pictures inside fit the songs so right. i would also like it if anyone who understands why there is a parental discretion warning on the song 'conspiracies' to tell me. i've listened to it a few times and i still can not undestand why. but all of his songs are awesome.

Wainwright manages to make fun of just about everyone in this CD, in his usual sarcastic, cynical style that seems to attack humanity as a whole. The themes are a bit outdated, (as they were written for NPR... although most were rejected for being too controversial), but it doesn't take away from the music or message of the songs. You'll either love or hate this CD.

I have purchased, yes paid for, ten of Loudon's CD's. Went to his concert in Brisbane and loved the fact that live or recorded, he sounds the same. I guess I'm a true blue fan, so what else is there to say ?

A truly pedestrian effort, this album is composed of topical tunes whose time has past. This collection would have been better left unrecorded.

Cartoons of O.J. Simpson, Tonya Harding, Santa Claus and John Lennon appear on the cover of Loudon Wainwright III's Social Studies, and that should give you some idea of the scattershot material preserved inside. Culled mostly from tunes he wrote over a ten-year period as drop-ins for National Public Radio, the disc shows Wainwright at his least insightful, his least imaginative and his least interesting. The kind of tossed-off style that can be charming in his more personal material is annoying when applied to topical matters - especially when those same subjects are joked on radio, television and comedy club stages. I suspect that Wainwright doesn't think he's saying anything profound when he offers lines like "Ice used to be a nice thing/When you laced up figure skates/Now it's a thing to win a medal on/For the United States." But he's not saying anything particularly funny either. Or very musically interesting.