Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
and 1/2 Stars...His Best Album of the Nineties, May 24, 2000
Looking back over Thompson's Nineties output, it is clear that this 1991 effort was the best of the lot. Rumor and Sigh's batch of songs mines familiar themes of broken hearts and failed love. Sometimes Thompson approaches these topics with humor as in "Read About Love." Sample lyric: "I do everything I'm supposed to do/If something's wrong, then it must be you/I know the ways of a woman/I've read about love." But usually his lyrics reflect a more realistic look at the darker side of relationships, as in "I Misunderstood" ("I thought she was saying 'good luck'/She was saying 'goodbye'"), or the melancholy "Why Must I Plead" ("All your bitterness and lies sting like tears in my eyes/And a thousand lovesick tunes won't wash away the wounds from my mind").Thompson, however, is not terminally morose. He turns in an upbeat performance on the accordian and fiddle number "Don't Sit on My Jimmy Shines." And while lyrically "Mother Knows Best" is the stuff of nightmares, Thompson's piercing guitar keeps things moving along at a rollicking pace. And "Psycho Street"--which may not warrant many repeated listenings--exhibits Thompson's gallows humor. The centerpiece of this collection though has to be the stunning solo acoustic guitar performance of "1952 Vincent Black Lightning." Almost ten years later I still get goosebumps when Thompson sings the final verse. [This song alone is worth owning this album. I still can't understand why it got left off his 3-CD career retrospective "Watching the Dark."] Thompson is quite simply the English-speaking world's best-kept secret. He is an amazing songwriter, an unbelievable guitarist and a strong vocalist. It's a shame he is not a household world. Along with "I Want To See the Bright Lights Tonight," "Pour Down Like Silver" and Shoot Out the Lights," this is a must-own album for any serious Thompson fan. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
sensational, May 17, 2000
If my house were burning, before I would rescue family photographs, the deeds to the house and our motor vehicles, precious jewelry, birth certificates, family heirlooms, my grandmother's Bible, or my manuscript in progress, I would rescue my Richard Thompson music collection. The second recording I would grab would be RUMOUR AND SIGH (after I grabbed SHOOT OUT THE LIGHTS). Richard Thompson is the music lyrics equivalent to Geoffrey Chaucer. Like Chaucer, who creates a group of vividly individualized tale telling pilgrims making their way to Canterbury, Richard Thompson creates vividly individualized characters who tell their tales through Thompson's songs. They are complex characters: a vengeful young man just released from jail, a geek devoted to the accordian recordings of Jimmy Shands, a felon with a tender heart in love with a 1952 Vincent Black Lightning and a red-headed girl, and a forlorn man whose lover turned out casual, not serious, etc. Thompson, like Chaucer, is by turns whimsical, satirical, ironic, enthusiastic, tender, cruel, angry, surreal, and always fresh and deeply intelligent. But I've saved the best for last: Richard Thompson is a guitar messiah. Whether electric or acoustic, few guitarist can match Thompson's versatility and virtuosity. If you enjoy traditional British folk, sizzling speed metal, polkas, reels, atmospheric expressionism, Chuck Berry styled rock and roll, and sundry other styles of popular and progressive music, Richard Thompson is king.
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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
One of Thompson's best 90's albums - five stars, August 9, 2003
Since the 5.1 DTS/Dolby Digital version of album review has been lumped in with the CD review (because of amazon's system being unable to distinguish between two versions of the same title), I'm going to address both separately. The CD is first. RT was especially prolific during the 90's. He rocked in the decade with the 1988 release "Amensia" and moved on to produce a substanial body of work during this period. "Rumor and Sigh" is the best album (outside of "Mock Tudor) that he produced during the decade. From the opening song the acerbic "Read About Love" to the character study "I Feel So Good" (an almost hit)the heartbreaking "I Misunderstood" there's hardly a misstep here. Yes, there can be 5 star albums that have flaws (I can't think of a 5 star album without them whether they be something a fan nitpicks or not)but the overall quality and power of the best material here makes up for even the lesser material.
I Misunderstood and I Feel So Good promised to finally break through to a larger audience with their clever MTV videos. Read About Love is probably one of the most stunning but less subtle songs on the album. It could easily have been written about the Internet and it's #2 usage--looking for Porn.
1952 Vincent Black Lightning is the type of song that Thompson has always excelled at; it's got a tight narrative, great melody and a tragic folk inspired ending. The only song that doesn't quite work for me is the epic closer Psycho Street. Yes, it captures the type of world we live in today but it's a bit obvious and a bit ordinary and predictable (particularly for a Thompson song). The best song for me is the often overlooked Keep Your Distance (in addition to You Dream Too Much).
The production by Mitchell Froom has often been criticized. He and Thompson worked well together; Froom managed to help Thompson shape his songs into a more contemporary mold with a number of clever production touches. Sometimes this could be distracting, somethimes not as on this album.
"Rumor and Sigh" continues to be one of the high watermarks of Thompson's solo career. I'd suggest "Henry the Human Fly" (which sold as many copies as the first Velvet Underground album if legend is to be believed), "I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight", "Hokey Pokey", the sad "Pour Down Like Silver", "Shoot Out the Lights" and amazingly underrated "Mock Tudor" in addition to this terrific album. The "Watching the Dark" anthology is also quite good.
The 5.1/DTS version of the album sounds terrific with a nice mix (although there's no note of Froom's involvement Thompson is thanked in the credits section so he must have approved it). This isn't a dualdisc version (which hopefully they will release of ALL of his releases). The videos include the two shot for "I Feel So Good" and "I Misunderstood" both of which are extremely good. The menu page uses graphics from the original CD booklet (and album)and the lyrics appear perfectly timed with the audio portion of the song. I do wish that there had been concert footage but my guess is that Capitol only used material that they owned the rights to. The set also could have benefited from bonus tracks in the form of demos (or even acoustic versions of the songs) but what we have here it quite good.
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