Customer Reviews

Year of the Cat

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4 star:		(6)
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2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kireviewer - please stick to your Brittney Spears cds. Don't enter into the historical realm of a real musician and brilliant writer. (See review below) What is Lord Grenville? Get serious. It's an historical recreation of a real ship, in war time, which was facing many enemy vessels and instead of retreating - fought bravely to the death. "We won't be back again... won't be back again." Year Of The Cat is like a beautiful painting, each song a wonderful real-life historical story. Just the title song alone is such a masterpiece of modern music and poetry. "She goes strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre contemplating a crime... She comes out of the sun in a silk dress, running like a water colour in the rain." That's my favorite, but the smuggling ship in "On The Border" is a close second. "The ghost moon sails among the clouds... turns the riffles into silver, on the border." I wish there were more caring musicians like Al Stewart and his under-rated guitar playing. Don't forget to listen to the great Peter White's beautiful guitar. And the lyrics are absolutley unheard of today. Quality unprescidented.

I first heard Al Stewart when I was about 10 years old (as of this review, I am 24). My father owned a ragged cassette tape of songs copied from the Year of the Cat vinyl LP, which we played in the car and at home quite extensively. Even at such a tender age, I could feel the genuine emotions conveyed through his songs: the sympathetic lamentations of "Lord Grenville," the cinematic seclusion of "Broadway Hotel," and the haunting remembrance of the title song. As I grew older into my teens, I went through a phase of musical exploration one might expect of someone at that stage of adolescence, seeking much more aggressive and noise-oriented forms of musical expression to placate the confusion of discomforts stirring within me, and thus I ignored the auditory pleasantries of childhood. But when I entered college and came to know myself more maturely, I started feeling a yearning for certain nostalgic facets of my past, and this album was one of them. How wonderful it was to find the CD here on Amazon.com!

Even as I listen to it now, I still find previously unnoticed nuances. Aside from the brilliant music contained on this album, I have also come to recognize how incredible the production was for its time (1976), as well as the usage of rather advanced synthesizers for subtle melodic support. The music itself is compelling in its atmosphere and timelessness, compared to what was then more popular. The guitar solos still ring true with clarity (not to mention the stylistic drum work and bass lines), never meandering away from their purpose, and Al's to-the-point style of singing is comforting like an honest friend.

There are so many exceptional songs on this album, spanning a wide range of places, moods, and even time periods. As a child, "Lord Grenville" was always my favorite, but now that I am a singer myself, I have grown partial to "One Stage Before." Its candid lyrics and dream-like vocal effects speak clearly to a musician's heart. He is truly a modern troubador, exploring love and sadness in equal measure.

Year of the Cat is a classic on so many levels, and while my college peers are content to surrender themselves to more contemporary sounds (as am I when the mood strikes me), it is unfortunate that many of my generation will miss out on this treasure of songs simply because of its "antiquity."

Al Stewart is the best writer in music (period). Year Of The Cat matches his often historical lyrics with wonderful tunes as good an anything ever recorded. A rare match. One of the best albums/cds ever. A learning, moving, picturesque trip through the world of Al Stewart. His best work. Writing from the song "On The Border" reads - The fishing boats go out across the evening water/Smuggling guns and arms across the Spanish border/The wind whips up the waves so loud/The ghost moon sails among the clouds/Turns the rifles into silver on the border. - If you can appreciate lyrics like that you'll get a good fill in Year Of The Cat. Intellectual words, mixed with the amazing guitar playing of both Al and the great Peter White.

Sometimes an album can be summed up prefectly in one song...more often than not, by the single. (Think Fleetwood Mac Tusk or U2's With and Without You from the Joshua Tree) So it is with Year of The Cat. The world of course is filled with great singles...but every now and then one comes along that passes a little thing I call the Blue Moon test. Imagine it's 1956 and you are a young teen in America...and suddenly Blue Moon as sung by Elvis on Sun records drifts out of that tiny radio on your bedside table. It sounds like it is from another world...another time...and unlike many great radio singles...it always sounds like that. Years later when it comes on, it doesn't sound like a song that moved you in 1956, it still sounds like it did then...out of place with everything else on the radio. Very few bands have singles like this...Born To Run by Bruce, Don't Fear The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, When Doves Cry and Kiss by Prince, Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone, I am The Walrus by the Beatles, Creep by Radiohead, She's Gone by Hall and Oats, Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, Billie Jean by Michael Jackson, these are just a few...Year of the Cat is another. The song sets the tone for the entire album...the mood. Smart lyrics, a touching voice that floats above the precision band and stunning guitar work by Peter White and Al Stewart. The arrangements are delicate, yet hook you in, and the production is clean...not overly slick, but polished the way you would expect from Alan Parson, man at the board on his work, Pink Floyd's Dark Side Of The Moon and Let It Be. The other songs on the album lead you to Year of the Cat like a road map. They mark the way, build up a sense of drama that something is coming...and yet, they all still manage to hold their own. In fact, the best songs on the album work becuase of this drama...they don't just tell a story, they set up the conflict, lyrically and musically. Broadway Hotel, Sand in Your Shoes, Flying Sorcery, the rocker (for Al anyway) If It Doesn't Come Naturally Leave it, and the other hit, On the border all pull you and leave you wanting more...expecting more...and then, Year Of The Cat delivers the pay-off. If all you have ever heard from this album are the two singles, you owe it to yourself to hear them in context.

Besides singing about weighty topics such as Lord Grenville and smuggling, Al Stewart also shows that he can be both romantic and whimsical. The images of the women he conjures up in song are of women who are happy, independent, and confident. "If It Doesn't Come Naturally, Leave It" is a perfect example. On the more pensive side, there is "Broadway Hotel". "One Stage Before" is a mystical song with a theosophical bent as are many of his songs to this day. The title track, although overplayed on the radio the year it was released, remains a pleasure to hear. For those unfamiliar with Al Stewart, YOTC is a perfect way to begin enjoying him as it remains one of his most intellectually accessible albums.

This album made Al Stewart a household name in America. Mention his name and the first thing people say is "The Year of the Cat". The title song is on my top three song list and is truly a great great song. More than that, it is a production. This work starts out with the simple piano piece that can be heard throughout the song and builds gradually in a great crescendo to the instrumental during the middle part of the song and finishes on a musical high that is unparalleled. Twenty plus years after its release I still listen to it often and take pleasure in every second of this masterful piece of work. Every song on this album is a winner. The lyrics are superb and he surrounds himself with the very best of musicians.

Seeing reviews of Al Stewart by others who are passionate about his music, either positive or negative, makes me happy and sad. Happy to know there are others who treasure him as I do and sad to see that others feel his work is weak and inspid. I have loved "Year of The Cat" since I found the album in a store, since I always looked for his work. When I later heard it on the radio in a store I was astounded that he had made it to airplay and thrilled that I would be able to find others who were familiar with him. As a singer/songwriter, I have always marveled at the way he mines history and introduces us to facets of it we never learned in school. One of my proudest accomplishments was once playing a concert at the "Taste of Minnesota" where I was nearly drowned out by his concert up the hill at the main stage. I got to see the evening show, and talked to Peter White afterwards and laughed at the story, telling him it really was an honor to be playing to the same air as Al. I would never have known about Lord Grenville at all if not for his willingness to tackle this difficult sort of songwriting and I'm sad that he has not only labored so many years in relative obscurity, playing small venues with such great lyrics and melodies, but also that he can be attacked for giving all he had to achieve some deeper quality than most of what we all call popular music.

I had the pleasure to see Al in Chicago on Jan. 18, 2003 @ Schuba's Tavern. It was just him and his guitar. At first I thought "he needs a whole band" but once he started it was unbelievable. (He's a very accomplished guitar player). Anyway, getting back to the YOTC CD every song is a winner. This is the debut album, I remember buying it in 1976 on 8 track tape. Al has such a unique voice and song writing style. His melodies and words tell stories that you can picture in your mind. The song YOTC is a masterpiece along with Lord Grenville, and of course On The Border. If your a beginning Al Stewart fan this would be the CD to start with.

If you are interested in getting into Al Stewart, this this is were to start. It is Al's most commercial album, although the lyrics are sometimes a little difficult to understand. Most of his music is pretty accessible, but this one probably has his finest collection of songs on a one studio album. Its also got On the Border in it, which is one of his most easily recognisable songs. All the songs on this album are excellent. Even the title track, my least favourite, is an excellent song. Broadway Hotel has got one of the most haunting violin solos I have ever heard on a rock album.
Year of the Cat captures Al at his peak. By this time, he has left behind his early Dylaneque roots and refined his style into something uniquely his own. Unfortanately, from here on there is very little development as far as Al Stewart's sound is concerned. His subsequent albums are very similar in style to this period in his career, although, of course, the themes have been very wide-ranging.

From the slick airbrushed cover to Al Stewart's silky vocals, "The Year of the Cat" is one of those records that sounds good today even as it defines (in some part) the good ol' Seventies.

Stewart is a fine singer and musician, and the production is painstaking throughout. So why wasn't his career bigger? After his follow up record, "Time Passages" it almost seemed like the Frampton Curse had struck. Still, the alternating sultry, dramatic and whimsical songs- particularly "Lord Grenville", "On the Border" and the title song - showcase Stewart at his silk-jacketed best. Maybe in an era of stadium rock, studded jeans and dry ice (followed by the stripped-down thrashings of Punk), Al's music never stood a chance. But for the FM replays of "The Year of the Cat", I never would have heard of this talented man.

Stewart's voice can sometimes veer into mincing, but it would be an underestimation to say that this record is lightweight. Like Dire Straits, this stuff has to be decanted like a fine wine. Try to chug it and you'll be disappointed.