Thursday 4 June 2009

Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson (1971)


An iconic album that was part of the background to my own childhood and the only record that I brought with me from my parents' (truly dire) collection into adulthood.
I can't do better in review than J R Heat Warp at the marvellous devotional blog For The Love Of Harry. I hope he forgives this lift...
"Following the moderate success of Nilsson Sings Newman and The Point!, Harry enlisted the production help of Richard Perry, booked London’s Trident Studio and set out to make the most rock n’ roll album of his career. Nilsson Schmilsson signaled a shift away from the heavy orchestration, multi-layered harmonies and rich production that characterized his 60s output, and toward a more organic, raucous approach to music making; a massively successful move that would yield a pair of top 40 singles (“Coconut” and “Jump Into the Fire”) as well as a worldwide #1 (“Without You”). And with this change in direction and the success that followed, it would be easy to peg Nilsson Schmilsson as Harry's "sell-out" album, and fortunately, it's anything but. In addition to the chart toppers contained within this iconic sleeve (evidently RCA failed to notice the hash pipe in Harry's left hand) were some of the most adventurous, flat out beautiful songs in his repertoire. Musicians have built entire careers around the success of songs half as good as "Early In The Morning", but here Harry knocks it out with just an organ and a set of pipes that at this point are merely colored by brandy and cigarettes, not yet ravaged by the hard partying that lay ahead. An intense, gorgeous LP that in true Nilsson fashion, left him with no other choice but to make a sequel." - JR Heat Warp

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