Customer Reviews

Sweet Revenge

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

 

 

I sometimes wonder why someone as underground as DJ would record such a commercial sounding 80's album. It really is irritating, but since I am a huge fan of DJ I can find something good in the music. My biggest complaint is of the over uses of the synth (why?)! This record is not recommended to someone who like punk, like th NYD's or the Ramones. It may be DJ's worst effort, discluding that Buster Pointdexter (...). His voice gets bogged down in some strange voice effects, but there are pieces of brilliance like the titles track. Sometimes I wonder If I'm listening to the soundtrack of a Richard Simmons workout video. That's a little harsh, and I hate to be so critical, but as I said only for the die harders of DJ-like myself.

I got into David Johansen's solo stuff after discovering and listening over and over (still do) to the fabulous New York Dolls, and 'Sweet Revenge' was the first piece of non-Dolls music I heard him sing in. Upon the first listen there was, well, the surprise, and appropriate that emotion was, that here we had something quite different than the coolest and one of the most meaningful circus acts ever.

While this is rock n' roll (most of it at least), it's not a very obvious form of it. Influences range deeply, from latino, disco, jazz, blues and a Bruce Springsteen brand of rocking out. There's a tight edit (nine songs), some of which are pretty lousy but several are good and one or two are excellent.

When I need to escape the shackles of reality, I currently can't think of a better way to do it than to get in my car and drive off somewhere while smoking a cigarette or two and listening to 'Heard the News' a few times.
It's one of David Jo's best songs off any of his recordings and the title track is another one of my favorites of his.

It's not easy to pinpoint why owning this album is a good move since, overall, it's not the greatest. But there is a subtlety in this music, whether tunes are rampaging misdirectionally or are pursuing freedom in subdued verse, that's unusual to hear in a lot of what's dished out to us from the music industry.

Johansen's capacity for a subtlety and mystery that results in borderline hypnotism is most evident in two of the best, most raw, blues albums I've ever heard, ones he released with the Harry Smiths in 2000 and 2002 (and hope there's more comin'). And in 'Sweet Revenge,' though he's not singing anything too bluesy-sounding here, (there are elements of it, though), that subtlety underscores a nice portion of the album. And, true, there are times when there's an over-the-topness, too, i.e., King of Babylon,' in which there's a lot of crass, but there's humor, too.

Texas novelist/book scout Larry McMurtry has written some outstanding novels and some not so good. Even when they aren't good they are still well worth reading because he has this 'something' going for him that makes his books, what to me is very important, interesting.

You could say about the same thing for the music of David Johansen.

David Johansen is an incredible talent who has for years been overlooked by mainstream America.

This album is a tour de force of his extraordinary talents.

I can't get enough of DJ, alias David Johansen. A must buy for any NYD's fan. David Johansen sings in one of the deepest most beautifuly sexy voices my delicate ears I have ever heard...WOW!

After recently seeing the new New York Dolls at the House of Blues, I found this little gem in a pile of on sale CDs at the mall. David is certainly one of the most underrated talents in the music business. First of all, the concert was amazing. All the musicians gave it their all despite the fact that is was not a sell out or even close to it. David deserves more recognition than he gets and I hope someday it opens up for him in a big way. Sweet Revenge was is an '80s attempt at the Disco-New Wave sound. The best song on the score is "The Filthy Rich" with "Sweet Revenge" as second. David proves he can adapt without selling out. A fine talented man whose career I have followed since his early days in New York during the "70s. I wish him more success than he gets....... and someday he will have it.

This is the ugly reality of when bad albums happen to good people. When people talk about the 1980's as a musically bankrupt era, this is what they're talking about: that it was a decade whose moronic synthesizers and soulless mix of disco and easy listening managed to induce albums like this disastrous sell-out by a punk legend. Under nearly no circumstances should it actually be purchased in exchange for money. (The only reason this gets more than 1 star is comedy value, and the comedy value comes through a lot better when you only pay 50 cents at a yard sale, as compared with $10 at a respectable record store.)

David Johansen is, of course, a good singer of hard rock. His band, the New York Dolls, are one of the great lost rock bands, pioneering both glam and punk, presaging everyone from the Ramones to T. Rex to Cheap Trick; and his solo career started promisingly, as his sadly out-of-print first solo album is one of the great lost albums of the 1970's. However, despite that pedigree, and perhaps as a result of some of the expectations it would foster, Sweet Revenge is an unmitigated shlock disaster on every level. Despite the occasional presence of electric guitars on this album, mostly present for cheesy metal licks, there is nothing resembling rock and roll on this album.

But plenty else makes an appearance. While the guitars mixed so far down they might as well be played in a different building, there are all kinds of loud, thudding electronic drums, obnoxious electronic synthesizers, electronic horns, and even kettle drums make an appearance on track 3. The singing is similarly uninspired: Johansen begins the first track, "Heard the News," by shouting in Spanish over major chords, and then alternately whining and belting a lyric about adultery. The album-closer "N.Y. Doll" pays homage to, while tragically failing to evoke or to live up to, his former band. Even still, these bookends are two of the album's least objectionable songs; the rest are both faceless and tasteless, neither good music nor bad enough to be a guilty pleasure, defying description by their sheer banality.

If you have a chance to listen to this album without actually paying for it, by all means, do. It encapsulates the 1980's--or at least everything that was wrong with it--better than VH1 ever could. However, any interests beyond ethnomusicology, musicohistoriography or masochism are likely to be sorely disappointed. You have been warned.