The Good: Good message, Some decent lyrics
The Bad: Overproduced, Poor use of samples, Monotonous
The Basics: Stevie Wonder manages to bore or freak out his listeners with the less than exceptional Conversation Peace, a funky album that falls flat.
As a music reviewer, I am often concerned about how repetition has an effect on how I review c.d.s. After all, familiarity (despite the popular phrase) seldom does anything but dull contempt. I review albums after listening to them eight times each. As a result, when an album is just plain terrible, I tend to find that the more I listen to it, the less I hate the overall experience because I become dulled to the initial loathing. While this gives me a much more authoritative position to write on an album's repeatability, it also seriously detracts on my ability to recapture on the first listen feel that is such an important experience to me usually.
Thus far, my experiences with the works of Stevie Wonder have been good. I enjoyed A Time 2 Love (reviewed here!) and I have enjoyed Musicquarium which I have been listening to as I listen to Conversation Peace. But Conversation Peace, is just a poor outing. My first listen to the album, I absolutely hated it. Now, I am more indifferent to it and am willing to consider the quality of the message, though it hardly justifies the duration and execution of this musical work.
With thirteen tracks, clocking out at an impressive 73:51, Conversation Peace is a big, jumbled collection of music. At least the portion is decent. This mid-90's work represents the vision and talent of Stevie Wonder going off in a more funk-based direction. Stevie Wonder wrote all of the music on the album and the lyrics to twelve of the thirteen songs (Stephanie Andrews wrote the lyrics to "Treat Myself"). Stevie Wonder plays instruments (yes, that's plural) on every track and he is credited with producing the album as well. So, this is his musical vision, at least as of 1995.
The problem I have with Conversation Peace is that it oscillates between being boring ("Tomorrow Robins Will Sing") to sounding completely derivative ("Cold Chill") to sounding utterly confused between the lyrics and music ("My Love Is With You"). The album holds together poorly and the common elements (like being overproduced) are not exactly the best selling point for the album. This is a pretty upbeat, smoothly-vocaled album which ultimately seems to have little idea what it wants to be. Those who like R&B or funk will likely have better examples in their collection and better examples of the talents of Stevie Wonder. Otherwise, the sound of this album is pop-funk and rhythm and blues, but this is definitely a more uptempo album than straightout blues.
But with the main problems with the album, there are few recourses. Several of the songs are just boring. I looked over just the track listings before beginning my first listen and after so many repetitions of the disc, it is hard for me to recapture my excitement over the possibilities of a Stevie Wonder song called "Sensual Whisper." I found it to be anything but tantalizing, instead the song is a lot of listing and repetition and left me bored as opposed to excited or titillated. Boring is a terrible musical crime. Moreover, songs like "Tomorrow Robins Will Sing" - which is not a bad song - lack musical gravitas and suffer more over repetition, much the way a song like "Don't Worry, Be Happy" eventually becomes grating background noise. It's a tough sell and Stevie Wonder fails to sell too many of the tracks on Conversation Peace.
As for the derivative quality, this, too, is just sad coming from an artist like Stevie Wonder. When one tunes in to an artist, they want to hear that artist (or so I figure). When they perform like themselves or experiment in a new direction, it is hard to criticize them. But when they sound like they are performing as another artist, it is just lousy. On "Cold Chill," Stevie Wonder presents a song as Prince (seriously) and it surprised me to find out Prince (whose name I write that way, not from a lack of respect, but rather my keyboard does not have the symbol he now goes by and I'd have no idea how to pronounce it anyway) had nothing to do with the song (he is, interestingly enough, given thanks in the liner notes on the album). "Tomorrow Robins Will Sing" has Wonder creating a classic-sounding Michael Jackson track. And "For Your Love" sounds familiar as it plays now, but I'm not nailing down who it sounds so much like.
Finally, Conversation Peace is plagued by songs with a decent message that is jumbled in the way it is presented. Take, for example, the epitome of disconnected on Conversation Peace, "My Love Is With You." "My Love Is With You" is a strong anti-gun piece that is plagued by a refrain from an entirely different song (or should be!) and samples that are more distracting than sensible. So, after presenting the very direct storysong "Suddenly two guys confronted me / Saying I was on the wrong turf, angrily / They said their colors were black but I was wearing gray / I started to turn to go back / They up and blew me away" the song enters a refrain of "My love is with you where ever you are . . . / Though my life they've taken / They can't take what we've shared / Spread the love I've given / And I'll be there" ("My Love Is With You"). Usually an effective writer, Stevie Wonder drops the ball in a big way on this song. If the you is the victim of handgun violence, as the story implies, then the message is gutted because we don't need to ban handguns because the love remains even after the victim is dead. It's an intellectual "no harm, no foul" policy when Wonder puts the post-death love up after the getting pointlessly shot. But if the love is supposed to be a divine form of love, the song is similarly pointless: God is a sadists and his love is all around us, even in the act of pointless handgun violence. Far, far, far better with the anti-handgun lyrics would have been to explore the real consequences of the violence, namely loss. Why should these weapons be banned? (as the chant at the end insists) Because the lives they take. But, alas, that is not what this song ultimately says. It creates the counterintuitive "Ban handguns, even though the deaths that occur leave behind an everlasting love." Doesn't work.
But overall, the lyrics - which are usually one of Wonder's selling points - are somewhat flatter on Conversation Peace. For example, "Edge Of Eternity" seems less developed and far less complicated than most of Stevie Wonder's songs with its tiresome refrain of "So when you're ready / Really, truly ready / Holding strong and steady / I'll be good to go / Cause if you start it / I am gonna finish it / I am gonna knock it / Like it ain't ever been knocked before." Rhyming words with themselves is a pet peeve of mine, but here Wonder does it somewhat repetitively, much to the detriment of the song.
The lyrically redemptive song is the title track, which is - ironically - the final song on the album. This becomes further encouragement for listeners to want the album to get to the end. But, like a tiresome movie that bores us for two hours for a last fifteen minutes that are impressive, by the time Stevie Wonder gets around to "All for one, one for all / There's no way we'll reach our greatest heights / Unless we heed the call / Me for you, you for me/ There's no chance of world salvation / Less the conversation's peace" (“Conversation Peace<”). It is smart, worthy and not boring. It just comes too late and that might be the death knell of this album. Stevie Wonder's vocals - when not derivative or boring - are clear and he articulates his songs well. But on Conversation Peace (the album) he is not challenging his extensive vocal range in any noticeable way. The album is ultimately generic and strangely dull for a work by an artist of Wonder's caliber. Fans can skip this one (there has to be a compilation with the title track on it!) and this is certainly not the album to get new listeners into Stevie Wonder with.
The best track is “Conversation Peace”, the low point is the boring "Edge Of Eternity."
For other male Artist Of The Month reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Greatest Hist - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Opiate (EP) - Tool
American Industrial Ballads (Boxed Set) – Pete Seeger
5/10
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© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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