Funky, Punky, Rock, Tina Turner's "Break Every Rule" Is Decent '80s Pop-Rock (Still)!

The Good: Decent production, Good vocals, Musically interesting (in a retro-80s way).
The Bad: Short, A bit overproduced.
The Basics: Another strong album by Tina Turner, Break Every Rule is blessed with having songs that are wonderful that were never hits for the performer.


As my musical exploration of the works of Tina Turner concluded, I found myself not feeling the disappointment I anticipated when I chose Turner as my March Artist Of The Month. That anticipated disappointment sprouted up because I knew Turner was more of a performer than a musical artist. When I first learned that, I was tremendously disappointed. Now, I just listen to her music for what it is. And I have come to appreciate some of her albums more than I anticipated I would.

The reason for this comes down to what makes Tina Turner unique. Unlike other musical performers, like Celine Dion or Barbra Streisand, Turner is not limited much by vocal range. So, while Celine Dion stays almost exclusively in her soprano register, Tina Turner roams the scales and she does it quite effectively and with a fluency I would argue had been unheard since Ella Fitzgerald leapt onto the music scene. Turner is in pretty exclusive company with her ability to traverse the scales and registers almost effortlessly and that skill is evident rather frequently on Tina Turner's 1986 album Break Every Rule.

With only eleven songs, occupying 50:42 on c.d., Break Every Rule exemplifies the bulk of Turner's career as a performer. Turner did not write or co-write any of the songs on the album, nor was she involved in the production of Break Every Rule in any way. Turner does provide her awesome vocals, which became exemplified by the hit singles “Typical Male” and “What You Get Is What You See,” but she did nothing else for the album. As well, because Turner was not involved in the creation of the music, it is hard to argue that this was necessarily her musical vision as opposed to what the studio wanted from her. Fortunately for music buyers, Break Every Rule is worth the buy because the best tracks are not the ones found on the numerous Tina Turner compilation albums on the market.

Musically, Break Every Rule is almost the archetypal 1980s pop-rock album. The songs are driven by keyboards and guitars with noticeable percussion and a strong sense of production. There is not a missed note or scratched guitar string on this album, instead, it sounds heavily polished, danceable and generally there are recognizable tunes to the songs. The guitar and keyboard combination makes many of the songs good “crankers,” the type of song fans insist have to be blared to get the full effect of the musical force, but the truth is the guitars do the work just fine at any volume. Songs like “”What You Get Is What You See” and “Overnight Sensation” work quite well because the songs are melodic and clearly have a musical sense to them, even if they do have a polished sound that sounds much more like the music was created by a mixing team than a collection of performers on instruments.

Vocally, Tina Turner does an exceptional job of presenting all of her lyrics clearly. She is smooth and soulful on “Two People” and energetic and ironic on “Till The Right Man Comes Along.” As mentioned before, she has incredible range which she brings to bear on “Break Every Rule.” She can go high and melodic, as she does on “Break Every Rule” (the single), or throaty and deeper, as she does on the single “Break Every Rule.” She even does such a good vocal interpretation of David Bowie on “Girls” that I instantly knew she was performing a Bowie song when I first heard the album!

Lyrically, Break Every Rule is largely about relationships, both finding love and keeping it. I found the superlative song to be the virtually unknown “I’ll Be Thunder.” Turner presents a compelling love song with lines like “There’ll be a storm one night / By you will find my place of hiding / We’ll watch the lights like children / Leave the fortress hand in hand / I’ll be thunder / You’ll be lightning / And we’ll collide on dry land“ (“I’ll Be Thunder”). Turner might not have written the lines, but she presents lyrics with an awesome sense of imagery that the listener may both relate to the visuals her voice evokes as well as the emotions she conjures up.

As well, she sings about the absence of love extraordinarily well. When she sings “When the beat of the drum has faded / The show comes to an and / The stage is clear and loaded / And the highway calls again / I stand and watch the lights go down / In the afterglow of your love / Dreamings all I'm guilty of / Everyday I'm playing tough / But read my mind” (“Afterglow”), anyone who has lost love will be able to relate. Turner makes everything sound personal, so it’s almost a surprise that she did not write any of the lines.

While most of the songs are universal expressions of emotions virtually every listener can understand, she sings about being in the music industry on “Overnight Sensation.” On that song, she makes music of the promises she was made as she got into music. Hearing “And all through the badlands / Rocking on the bandstands / It's so hard in the barbands / When there's no one there who understands / And Lady Luck will pass you by and she will never say yes / You're gonna be an overnight sensation / Gonna be an overnight success” (“Overnight Sensation”), one can almost hear every young ingénue being swindled. Still, the song sounds good and Turner makes it rock.

Ultimately, Tina Turner makes everything sound good on Break Every Rule and this is a wonderful, if obvious pop-rock album. Those who like pop-rock from a strong female vocalist will likely find something to like on this one!

The best song is “I’ll Be Thunder,” the low point is the unmemorable “Paradise Is Here.”

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
Tina Live In Europe
Foreign Affair
Simply The Best
What's Love Got To Do With It? Soundtrack
Wildest Dreams
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

7/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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An Interesting Historical Document, Tina Live In Europe Is Hardly An Essential Album Set.

The Good: Some great songs, Some interesting interpretations of them, The few tracks unique to this collection.
The Bad: Nothing overwhelmingly different, Some of the "live" conceits are annoying.
The Basics: An interesting set, Tina Turner's Live In Europe gets a soft recommend based more on the astonishing number of cool covers than from the new renditions of previously-released songs.


For those who do not follow my music reviews, the albums that tend to have the hardest time standing up to my scrutiny (outside of holiday albums) are live albums. Nine times out of ten*, the listener is likely to get more out of being at a concert than they are out of a live album and because almost every live album or live album set seeks to "prove" the album is live by including sounds from the crowd the performance was recorded at, the replayability usually suffers. So, it speaks well to both Tina Turner and Tina Live In Europe that I ultimately recommend the two-disc set.

Riding high on the success of her first two big solo albums, Tina Turner took herself and her bandmates on the road (and air) throughout Europe and Israel to perform. In 1988, after the wildly successful tour came to a conclusion, Turner released the two-disc set Tina Live In Europe. The mix is a surprisingly good one, saved mostly by the second disc which features rare duets and cover songs which Turner did not perform studio versions of on any other albums. So, while the first disc is largely Turner's recognizable '80s hits like "Private Dancer," "What's Love Got To Do With It," "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," and "What You Get Is What You See," the second disc has some real jewels. After a month of reviewing the works of Wilson Pickett, it was a huge treat for me to hear Turner cover songs by and made famous by Pickett, like "Land Of 1,000 Dances" and "In The Midnight Hour." The truth is, she presents "Land Of 1,000 Dances" with an almost surprising lack of soul and the song comes out as a silly pop number instead of anything truly funky.

With twenty-eight songs (fourteen per disc) occupying 66:44 (disc 1) and 60:24 (disc 2) on two c.d.s,
Tina Live In Europe is basically Tina Turner without overbearing production elements. For those who might have doubted, Tina Turner can still sing and perform just fine without the massive 1980s production values! Tina Turner does what she does on so many of her albums, she performs the lead vocals. That is all. She does not play any musical instruments and she was not involved with the production of the album. Even so, it is Tina Turner clearly dominates the album with her voice.

The thing is, like most "live" albums, Tina Live In Europe suffers on audio for the same things that probably make going to one of Turner's concerts so amazing in person. Take, for example, her rendition of "What's Love Got To Do With It." After thanking her audience for making it a #1 hit, she performs it, then goads the girls, women and then men in the audience to repeat the refrain in various ways. It sounds cool the first time, but the more one replays the album, the more tedious it is to listen to. As per my usual, I've listened to Tina Live In Europe eight times now and I dread the back half of "What's Love Got To Do With It" because of that. Similarly, on "Better Be Good To Me," Turner's accompanying vocalist goes around the amphitheater the recording was made at trying to get more participation from various corners and it becomes subsequently more tedious with each listen.

For those who may not have heard much from Tina Turner, Tina Turner's music is very traditional pop-rock music and for Tina Live In Europe, her music is guitar and keyboard dominated with pretty heavy percussion. Songs like "Let's Stay Together" on this album lack the more brazen brass section the studio versions of the songs are known for. As a result, Tina Live In Europe may not be the best example for some listeners of what Tina Turner's music actually sounds like, as it is more stark and stripped down. Despite being less produced, Turner still rocks on songs like "Show Some Respect" and "River Deep, Mountain High." Much of the album still manages to sound big and brazen and energetic in ways that many musical artists are not able to pull off effectively.

Vocally, Tina Turner has an impressive voice which illustrates its phenomenal range exceptionally well on this set. She is soulful and slow on songs like "A Change Is Gonna Come" and energetic and vocally raunchy on "Addicted To Love." She has an impressive range and on "Tina Live In Europe," Turner illustrates that. "A Change Is Gonna Come" illustrates Turner's exceptional lung capacity and how with her voice she has the power to melt hearts and diamonds. Her voice is liquid soul when she wants it to be and on this album, she clearly wanted it to at points.

Ultimately, what made me recommend this album - because her rendition of "In The Midnight Hour" was heartbreakingly bad - was the duets on the second disc. Tina Turner performed with Robert Gray ("634-5789"), Eric Clapton ("Tearing Us Apart"), David Bowie ("Tonight," "Let's Dance"), and Bryan Adams ("It's Only Love"). Hearing these duets is a treat for anyone who likes the works of Tina Turner or any of those individual performers/artists. My partner, who loves Bowie, was thrilled to hear alternate renditions of "Let's Dance" and "Tonight" and the give and take between Turner and her guest vocalists is exceptional. Turner proves herself a classy lady by being able to give each guest vocalist their space to perform and she makes the songs work quite well as a result.

But the rest of the album truly does become problematic due to the usual conceits associated with "live" albums. The crowd noises are annoying and while the vocals are wonderful, Turner's accompaniment ranges from intrusive (the drums and backing vocals on "River Deep, Mountain High") to unpleasantly different from the original ("I Can't Stand The Rain"). That said, the quality of the rest is enough to enthusiastically recommend it.

The best songs are "Typical Male" (Disc 1) and "Tonight" (Disc 2), the low points are the unmemorable "Back Where You Started" (Disc 1) and the troublingly amelodic "In The Midnight Hour" (Disc 2, and you can bet I never thought I would write that!).

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
Foreign Affair
Simply The Best
What's Love Got To Do With It? Soundtrack
Wildest Dreams
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

* The tenth time I reserve for performances where the concert is so loud or poorly engineered that the listener can hardly hear and/or cannot even pick out the recognizable songs because of how the levels are being mixed, like that Matchbox Twenty concert I once went to . . .

5.5/10

For other album reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here for an organized listing!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Tina Turner's People Jump The Gun With Simply The Best.

The Good: Generally good music
The Bad: Shorter, There's a vastly better mix of Tina Turner's songs!
The Basics: A disappointing compilation which was later recut with most of these tracks and more, Simply The Best simply isn't the best of Tina Turner's works.


Sometimes, I find myself wrestling to muster up the enthusiasm to write a review and today, I find myself at that place with the latest Tina Turner release I have to review. Simply The Best was released in 1991 and I have absolutely no idea why. In 2004, Tina Turner would release All The Best which was arguably the definitive collection in its two-disc form. How much changed in those intervening thirteen years? Surprisingly little, which is probably why All The Best has all but the five tracks unique to Simply The Best.

Where All The Best utilizes the standard releases of most of Tina Turner's most famous and recognizable songs, Simply The Best uses some alternate cuts and mixes and, frankly, the result is less creative and more cringeworthy. As a result, despite the fact that this one-disc set has many good Tina Turner songs, the tracks unique to it - the final five on the disc - are generic pop-rock which is hardly as distinctive as her usual fare. This makes it exceptionally easy to pass by this particular compilation.

Simply The Best takes up 68 minutes and it contains all of Tina Turner's solo hits through 1991 with five additional tracks, most notably a duet with Rod Stewart, "It Takes Two." Turner's classic song "Nutbush City Limits" appears as a popped up version which is absolutely terrible. Otherwise, Tina Turner is the lead vocalist on every song. She does not play any of the instruments on any of the songs and she was not involved in the production of any of the tracks.

Simply The Best includes well-known Tina Turner hits like "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)," "What's Love Got To Do With It," and "Typical Male." For those who might not have heard those songs in the 1980s and 1990s, Turner's sound is a fairly produced pop-rock sound which is guitar and keyboard dominated, with fairly heavy percussion. The songs are usually dancable and they have a musical force which Turner uses to accent the message she is singing about. So, songs like "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" has an anthemic sound and feel to it, while "I Can't Stand The Rain" has a lonelier, quieter instrumental accompaniment when Turner is singing. Even "The Best" has a brassy quality to it as Turner transforms singsong lyrics into a more forceful song of praise to a lover.

Tina Turner has an impressive vocal range, which she uses on Simply The Best, even the newer songs. Ironically, there are moments in "It Takes Two" where Turner's voice goes lower than Stewart's. Tina Turner shows great range, going both high and low on her new track "Love Thing" and throughout the album, Tina Turner's multi-octave range is skillfully displayed with clear vocals. The only song where Turner's real voice is not terribly clear is "Nutbush City Limits (The 90's Mix)," which has her original vocals sped up and remixed in order to make the classic song sound new.

Lyrically, Tina Turner offers very little new on Simply The Best, which makes sense because it is largely a compilation. Most of the songs are love songs or songs about the loss of love. While there are no new, wonderful songs one hears and feels they absolutely must have, the new content is not all bad. In fact, Turner does a good job of soulfully presenting lines like "Last night we tried to touch but we never got close / Last night we tried to talk, the words got caught in our throats / When we finally fell asleep / We couldn't have been further apart / Look me in the heart / If you think that love is blind / Baby look me in the heart / And you'll see that I'm so crazy about you baby" (“Look Me In The Heart”) that one feels like they must have heard them from Turner before, they are so universal and archetypally Turner. The song resonates well with anyone who has ever felt distanced from a loved one.

Unfortunately, some of the new songs display cracks that listeners of Turner's might have suspected were coming. While many of Turner's earlier works use somewhat predictable rhymes, it is forgivable because Tina Turner was pioneering the way. But on songs like "Love Thing," the rhymes are just unfortunately bad and obvious at times. When Turner sings "Get on board, get on my love thing / Gonna drive you wild / I wanna show you, I wanna hear you sing" ("Love Thing") the listener almost cringes. That same feeling comes with the rhymes of "right" to "tight" and "do" to "you" in “Way Of The World." The new material is not the best work written for Turner.

If it seems like this is a simple review, it is. There's a vastly better compilation with all of the songs, but the new five on here, plus quite a bit more. And the remixes on this disc, like the one of "Nutbush City Limits" is just awful, almost enough to make one wish for any prior recording from when Tina and Ike were still together. This may safely be passed by, despite the presence of some amazing, timeless hit songs.

The best song is "Look Me In The Heart" (it's not, but it's the best of the new tracks and I'm getting real tired of writing that the best track is "Better Be Good To Me," which is on this album), the low point is "Nutbush City Limits (The 90s Mix)."

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
Foreign Affair
What's Love Got To Do With It? Soundtrack
Wildest Dreams
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

4/10

For other album reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Average At Best, Tina Turner's Wildest Dreams Leaves Me Feeling Remarkably Neutral.

The Good: Good vocals
The Bad: Short, All the best songs are on compilations, Overproduced
The Basics: A very average c.d., Wildest Dreams is a flop for Tina Turner which is more mediocre than actually terrible.


One of the reasons I listen to an album at least eight times before I review it is that replayability is a big factor in whether an album hold up over the years. If I can't stand an album after the third listen, it is hard to call it timeless. Conversely, while one's appreciation for the depth of an album may increase over multiple listens, the initial impact of an album only happens on the first listen. But impact can be the flash that blinds a novice reviewer to a lack of substance behind the sparkle. With Wildest Dreams, the latest c.d. I'm reviewing by Tina Turner, there was no initial sparkle or impact. This was a remarkably mellow work which further replays of the album only made the initial impression less distinct.

Wildest Dreams has the impact of mood music or background music in a restaurant. After a few minutes, the ambiance it helped establish fades and you're left with the conversation you're having with your dinner companion; you stop noticing the music and it leaves little in the way of a distinct impression. Wildest Dreams is hardly wild, it is sedate, fairly indistinct and when it is forceful in any noticeable way, it is overproduced, as evidenced by the opening drums of the hidden song on track 13 (the reprise of "Something Beautiful Remains"). And the best songs on this album are on Turner's superior compilation, which makes it easy to not recommend this album.

With fourteen songs on thirteen tracks, occupying 69:26, Wildest Dreams feels shorter than it actually is, largely because the songs start to blend together after "Something Beautiful Remains." The album is very much a typical Tina Turner album in that she appears on it as a performer only, not as an artist. As such, she provides the lead vocals on each and every song. However, Tina Turner did not write any of the songs, play any of the instruments, nor did she produce any of the songs. She is, however, credited as a co-executive producer on the album. Given how popular and influential Turner was by this point, it is hard to imagine the ultimate sound is anything but what she wanted it to be.

Sadly, though, Wildest Dreams is a collection of songs which fails to distinguish itself on its own. While Turner opens strong with her cover of "Missing You" (made popular by John Waite), and does a decent duet with Barry White for "In Your Wildest Dreams," the album sinks after that into a collection of murky tunes which fail to distinguish themselves well from one another. So, while I was thrilled to hear the Pet Shop Boys influence on "Confidential," the novelty of that faded by the fourth listen and it became part of the long, gray latter half of this overproduced pop/soul album. One would think "Goldeneye" would ratchet the enthusiasm back up, but it sounds like just what it is, a James Bond theme and in this case, it wakes the listener up just long enough to be lulled back to sleep by "Dancing In My Dreams."

Wildest Dreams is a heavily-produced, keyboard-dominated album which has less in the way of powerful or recognizable melodies than most of Turner's preceding works. In fact, "Whatever You Want" opens with a similar sound and resonance to "Goldeneye" and the songs do begin to blend together after one listens to the album twice in a row. Keyboard with some percussion is all that truly defines the instrumental accompaniment on Wildest Dreams. This is by no means Turner's most instrumentally diverse album and as a result, it blends together. This is a quieter album and most of the songs are pop ballads with a smattering of r&b influence. Even "Confidential" is more muted than most works by the Pet Shop Boys.

Vocally, Tina Turner is flawless as ever. Her vocals are emotive and melodic. Turner has an exceptional range and on songs like "Whatever You Want," she is able to go high and clear, whereas on "Do What You Do," she goes lower and more soulful. By this point, listeners ought to expect the clarity and lung capacity she illustrates on "On Silent Wings." As a result, Turner performs up to expectations, but has nothing truly new to offer listeners in order to wow them with something different.

Wildest Dreams is made up, mostly, of ballads that are slow, soulful and primarily about love and relationships. She mixes it up some by presenting musical storysongs, like “Thief Of Hearts.” That song has more of a narrative where Turner sings “Yeah, I met you on a starry night, full moon in your eyes / Did something strange to me / I was all prepared to spin my web, take you for a ride / There was a fork in the street / Well I didn't mean to fall in love, /Didn't practice the rules that I've been taught / You never get involved, never drop your defenses / But this time I got caught / I'm a thief of hearts, a burglar in the night / Before they knew what hit them I was out of sight / Been a thief of hearts, now I'm paying for my crimes” (“Thief Of Hearts”). There, Turner successfully mixes the literal with the metaphorical and the song reads well as a poem, even if it sounds generic on the album.

Turner and her producers, though, have a generally decent ability to pick winners as far as the poetics go. One of the more memorable songs on the album, “On Silent Wings” has wonderful imagery with lines like “I can see us in our dreams and we're dancing / I can almost hear the song / But the prayers, they go unanswered / But we both know, we're just hanging on / Oooh, I feel the shame / But I'll never know the reason why / The rug was pulled so gently from under my feet / I only know that something good has died / Between you and me, oh it's just a memory / You never see it coming / You just go separate ways / Silent wings.” Turner makes simple lines soulful and the song resonates well.

But not all of the lyrics are poetic winners even on the page. To wit, “All Kinds Of People” has a decent message, but terrible rhymes. Turner tries to present a song about the healing power of love and the importance of love in these fractious times. But, the song flounders with unfortunate rhymes like “Kiss of life and the hand of fate / Boy grow's up into his father's son / And he loves to love, been taught to hate / To carry on the way it had been done” (“All Kinds Of People”). Even Tina Turner cannot overcome such stale rhymes.

Ultimately, Wildest Dreams is an average album, but one that is neither Tina Turner's best work, nor one that one need add to their permanent collection. The best songs are available elsewhere and fans are likely to find after a few listens that this album becomes auditory mush instead of remaining vibrant or even interesting.

The best track is "Missing You," the entire latter half after "Confidential" is weak.

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
Foreign Affair
What's Love Got To Do With It? Soundtrack
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Another Unfortunate Tina Turner Album, Foreign Affair Can Be Skipped.

The Good: Some creative lyrics
The Bad: Short, Drastically overproduced, No real standout songs
The Basics: Average-at-best, Foreign Affair is a Tina Turner album that lacks the resonance (and power singles) of most of her other works.


Sometimes, the problem with immersing oneself in one musical artist for a month is that if that artist or performer does not have a lot of variation to their works, one may quickly tire of them. In the case of the works of Tina Turner, that is where I am right now, at least with her late-80s works. As I’ve been listening to Foreign Affair on high replay, all I can think is that Tina Turner must have had some serious street cred and a powerful fanbase to recover from this album. This very poppy, overproduced and is remarkable now to listen to for the fact that the only recognizable songs from it tend to be recognizable because they are on other compilations.

Foreign Affair does not have a strong single to sell the album, but it also is so repetitive and monotonous in the instrumental accompaniment and production that it holds up poorly over multiple listens. The result is an album that seems to want to trade solely on the vocal force of Tina Turner. The problem is, when one can have Tina Turner’s voice coupled with great lyrics and interesting production, why would one settle for Tina Turner’s voice with mediocre lyrics and terrible, repetitive, blasé production? I have no satisfactory answer for that.

With only a dozen songs occupying 52:16, Foreign Affair is creatively minimally the work of Tina Turner. Tina Turner appears as the primary vocalist on the album – though she hands off to backing vocalists a troubling amount on “You Know Who (Is Doing You Know What)” – as well as a co-executive producer of the album as well as co-producer on “The Best” and “Ask Me How I Feel.” She does not play any musical instruments on the album, nor was she involved in writing any of the music or lyrics. Usually having producer status means that one gets the sound they intended to release, but in the case of Foreign Affair, one suspects Turner just got the best out of the material she was given.

Instrumentally, Foreign Affair is hampered by a “Big '80s” sound and sense of production values. The album sounds more like a Bon Jovi or hair band album from the late 1980 in many ways. The guitars are heavier on “Steamy Windows,” “Undercover Agent For The Blues,” and “The Best.” Even the keyboards are oppressively noticeable on “Ask Me How I Feel.” The album is loud in the instrumental accompaniment and it is a very typical, overproduced keyboard, guitar and percussion sound with almost no real variation track to track, making it very hard to listen to over and over again and get anything remotely interesting out of the experience. In fact, the only real surprise for me on the instrumental accompaniment or production was the fact that Lindsey Buckingham did NOT produce “Look Me In The Heart.”

Vocally, Tina Turner is performing very much at her predictable levels. While Turner has extraordinary range, the listener comes to the album knowing that and unfortunately, Foreign Affair has little to offer listeners that they have not already heard. Moreover, Turner displays her range more on this album track to track, as opposed to within each song. So, for example, “Undercover Agent For The Blues” has Turner performing low and soulful and “Not Enough Romance” has her going higher, but the two registers never truly mix on this album. The songs are quieter, like the single Foreign Affair, or boisterous, like “Ask Me How I Feel” with little tempo or emotional variation within the songs as well.

Turner has a few songs on Foreign Affair that are interesting. In addition to the title track, which is a decent musical storysong, Turner is wonderfully sensual with the lines she sings on “Steamy Windows.” And, despite having some repetition, Turner makes some of the songs about love and loss – topics she frequently sings about – sound good. So, she convincingly sells “My sentimental ways don’t seem to phase you / I don’t ever wanna force your hand / If you met me one time, just half the way / I could meet you where you are / Just meet me where I am / Cause every now and then you’ve gotta drive right in / Deeper than deep / You take a chance and then you give the wheel a spin / Anyone can see” (“Falling Like Rain”). Tina Turner can take some middling or interesting poetry and make it into a wonderful song.

Unfortunately, Turner gets very repetitive with refrains on songs like “You Can’t Stop Me Loving You“ and “Be Tender With Me Baby.” As well, even Turner cannot overcome some terrible lines like “Look me in the heart / If you think that love is blind / Baby look me in the heart / And you'll see that I'm so crazy about you baby / And it's not in my mind / Can't you look me in the heart / Look me in the heart” (“Look Me In The Heart”). Without consistently good lyrics, Turner’s albums falter and Foreign Affair is a good example of that.

For very middling pop-rock, Foreign Affair fits the bill, but for anything better, including an enduring album, it flops. Even those who love '80s pop will have a tough time finding works of enduring greatness, or even adequacy, on Foreign Affair.

The best track is “The Best,” the low point is “You Know Who (Is Doing You Know What).”

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
What's Love Got To Do With It? Soundtrack
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

4.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Astonishingly Good Mix Of Works By Tina Turner: What's Love Got To Do With It?

The Good: Good vocals, Decent instrumental accompaniment, stands remarkably well outside the film.
The Bad: Dreadfully short!
The Basics: A great mix that showcases both Tina Turner's vocal and stylistic range she performed with over different eras, What's Love Got To Do With It is more than a soundtrack.


Back in March, when Tina Turner was my Artist Of The Month, I thought to see if my library could get in the film What's Love Got To Do With It. I've seen the film before, years ago, when it was in theaters. I remember because it was part of one of the oddest double features I have ever seen. First, there was Disney's Aladdin, then What's Love Got To Do With It a stark look at the life of Tina Turner, with emphasis on the years she spent with Ike. I'm sure there's a joke to be made in here about Gilbert Gottfried's voice assaulting the audience's ears shortly before Ike Turner assaults Tina (and, by extension, the eyes and minds of the audience), but it's just not coming to me. It was a weird night in the cinematic history of W.L. Swarts. So, it makes sense at the very least that my library would get in the soundtrack to What's Love Got To Do With It in order for me to get a nice, thorough understanding of Tina Turner's works.

What's Love Got To Do With It, even in soundtrack form, serves as both a musical history and a biography of the life of Tina Turner. I remember the profound sense of disappointment I felt when I learned that "I Don't Wanna Fight" - which I'll argue is the best Tina Turner song - was not written by Turner. While I applaud the ability to fit a great song to the appropriate artist, there was something truly disappointing about finding out that the song she makes sound autobiographical with the passion in her voice was not. C'est la vie. Still, the soundtrack to What's Love Got To Do With It stands solidly on its own as a history of popular music from the sixties through 1990s.

With a dozen tracks occupying 52:10, arguably the biggest strike against Whats Love Got To Do With It is that it is short. Turner only wrote "Nutbush City Limits" on this disc, though she provides all of the lead vocals for the album. Turner does not play any musical instruments on the album, though she did co-executive produce the album. Even so, her liner notes make it quite clear that she was pleased with the end result of this album, both as a soundtrack and as a musical biography of the milestones in her life.

Listeners are likely to enjoy the mix of pop music which starts with the end, with the song "I Don't Wanna Fight" and then goes back to the blues-soul origins of Tina Turner which she makes smolder. From there, she works up through disco ("Disco Inferno") and funk ("Nutbush City Limits") to power '80s pop ("What's Love Got To Do With It"). In between, there are some cool moments of r&b ("Why Must We Wait Until Tonight?") and smooth soul ("It's Gonna Work Out Fine"). The songs flow organically and this is a pleasantly complete album, as opposed to feeling fractured by so many different musical styles.

Instrumentally, Tina Turner is most frequently accompanied on What's Love Got To Do With It by guitars and keyboards. In fact, on this recording of "Nutbush City Limits," the usual percussion is more muted than on many other recordings I've heard. As a result, the entire album has a more mild flavor to it. The percussion never breaks out in such a way as to be as pounding as it could be. In fact, on "Nutbush City Limits" and "A Fool In Love" the bass is used to help keep time and it helps the songs sound both more funky and less aggressive. But for those looking for funky and brassy, the latter half of "Proud Mary" is appropriately energetic and it stands out well as a result. Similarly, "A Fool In Love" - despite the context in the film which was so memorable, even years later I recall it - has an energy and fun sound to it that makes it stand out well beside the more obvious pop-rock numbers.

Vocally, Tina Turner is in great form on What's Love Got To Do With It. The songs illustrate Turner's multi-octave range and her song "I Don't Wanna Fight" illustrates both her lung capacity and her ability to traverse the ranges from her lowest to a clear, beautiful soprano. She goes low and primal on "Rock Me Baby" and she goes higher and energetic on "I Might Have Been Queen." And, for those looking for melodic and just plain beautiful, it is hard to argue with the vocals to the song "What's Love Got To Do With It." In other words, there is nothing out of Turner's range and she illustrates that well on this compilation.

Usually, I do a lyrical analysis, but What's Love Got To Do With It is a compilation and almost all of the songs are recognizable either from Turner or other artists who performed the songs. The songs range from musical storysongs about hardship ("Proud Mary") to unhealthy love songs ("Fool In Love") to true love songs ("Stay Awhile") to the anthem of overcoming abuse ("I Don't Wanna Fight"). And, the truth is, they're all good, even "Nutbush City Limits," which is traditionally a song that does not wow me. This album has a decent thematic selection, though most of the songs are about relationships and getting out of bad situations.

Those who like pop and r&b and who want to hear a diverse selection of works from a powerful feminine voice will find something to love on What's Love Got To Do With It. While "I Don't Wanna Fight" stands out as the best track, there are no truly weak links; in fact, this compilation only makes us with there were more to it.

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
Twenty Four Seven
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

9/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Average, But All Right, Tina Turner Results When Tina Goes Twenty Four Seven!

The Good: Good vocals, Decent production, Some enjoyable comparatively unknown songs
The Bad: Very short for the medium, Some less distinct tracks
The Basics: A good, but less distinct, Tina Turner album, Twenty Four Seven holds up better as a musical experience than as individual tracks.


One of the reasons I was so eager to make Tina Turner my Artist Of The Month back in March was that she has been a fairly prolific performer throughout the years and yet, I find myself near the bottom of the stack of c.d.s my local library managed to get in for me staring into the face of a number of Tina and Ike Turner compilations. The last Tina Turner album I had for a while was Twenty Four Seven, Turner's 1999 endeavor. It is a very good pop-rock album and while it is easy to recommend because the best tracks are not ones which have made it onto subsequent compilations, it is not as robust an album as fans of Tina Turner might hope it to be.

Twenty Four Seven starts energetic and it moves into a more mellow series of songs before finishing energized again. This does not make it a bad album, but it does make it less distinct track to track. Actually, as a person who loves albums and tends to deride producers and record companies for just trying to get the two to three hit singles they can out of an artist or performer, Twenty Four Seven does a good job of creating an album with a strong sense of overall mood. The result is I enjoy listening to Twenty Four Seven quite a bit, but I cannot actually pick much out about the album that actually excites me. It's a mellow album and one that has ebbs and flows of energy, a decent sense of production, but it also doesn't leap out into the ear and tell a story or stand out in any meaningful or enthusiastic way.

With only eleven songs occupying 46:58, Twenty Four Seven is an unfortunately short Tina Turner album. Turner did not write any of the songs and what I found troubling was that the album credits list each song's producer before the song's writer! Tina Turner did not produce any of the tracks, but she is credited as a co-executive producer for the overall album. Like most of her albums, Tina Turner provides all of the lead vocals. She does not play any musical instruments on the album.

Instrumentally, Twenty Four Seven is very much a typical Tina Turner album. The album is keyboard dominated and has heavy production, like most albums in the late 1990s. But beyond that, the album uses electric guitars more than most Tina Turner albums. The thing is, on Twenty Four Seven, electric guitars are used as accent instruments much the way brass is used for emphasis on songs in r&b and funk. So, for example, on "Go Ahead," the guitars pop up to accent the singer's declarations, but they do not establish or carry any tune. While guitars are more melodic on "When The Heartache Is Over," more often than not, the songs are keyboard-driven like "I Will Be There" (which was written by the Gibb brothers!).

The keyboard and lighter percussion sound of Twenty Four Seven helps blend the album into a more cohesive whole. Instead of being distinct singles, the album flows from song to song fairly well as the constant keyboards tend to stay in the same mid-range registers to back Turner's vocals. In fact, the only real rapture from the formula is the way the guitars and harmonica burst out on the single Twenty Four Seven.

On Twenty Four Seven, Tina Turner stays more in the lower registers. Songs like "I Will Be There" and "Talk To My Heart" have Turner emoting well and clearly, but not going into the high registers that she has always been capable of traversing. And while she does go soprano and strained for "Without You" and "When The Heartache Is Over," more often than not, she stays in tenor or lower range. What is also distinctive about Turner on Twenty Four Seven is that she tends to pick a range and stay in it within each song. In other words, she does not jump registers or do anything auditorily interesting in any of the tracks with her voice. The result is that the album sounds and feels very safe.

Lyrically, Twenty Four Seven is a great example of how a wonderful vocalist can take ordinary or mediocre poetry and make it soar. Even I have to admit that the rhymes "Talk to my heart / That's where real talking starts / Words of love go straight to my heart / Reach out and touch / A few words say so much / I can hear you when you tell it like it is / When you talk straight to my heart" ("Talk To My Heart") are pretty obvious and occasionally blase. But Turner makes them work and she makes a pretty magical love song with "Talk To My Heart." Love and the loss of love, like "Don't Leave Me This Way," are consistent themes for Turner and this album is no different in that regard.

Still, Turner gets some talented writers to work with and she rocks on songs like "I Will Be There." When she sings "This is the life you save laid out before you / Everything that I think I have been and what I am now / Nothing can change the way I feel about you / Better we go on our separated ways / Nothing is left but the endless days / Nothing to cry but your name / Don't you look back / Don't say a word / I will be lonely for you / I will be standing for you / Don't you despair, I will be there for you" ("I Will Be There") she makes the sentiments articulate and clear. She sings wonderfully about love and the strains it puts on people and Turner is clear and melodic on every track.

Part of the reason Twenty Four Seven works so well is the sense of imagery that is in almost all of Turner's songs. On the single "Twenty Four Seven," she has decent lines like "Twenty four seven, stay with me / Twenty four seven, throw away the key / Twenty four seven, I don't want to be free . . . Two strong hearts have to share one cell" which make clear analogies between love and commitment and imprisonment. The song is energetic and interesting, even if it is a little repetitive. Turner makes it seem less repetitive by relegating the oft-repeated title to backing vocalists.

Ultimately, Twenty Four Seven is a good album by Tina Turner, but it is not one that sparked a lot of singles and listening to it on heavy replay, it's no surprise. But while it might not have overly distinctive tracks, the album feels good to listen to. It is melodic, well-produced and fun. Sometimes, that should be enough, especially from the Queen Of Pop!

The best track is "Talk To My Heart," the low point is the funky, but repetitive "Absolutely Nothing's Changed."

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
What You Hear Is What You Get: Live At Carnegie Hall - Ike & Tina Turner
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

6.5/10

For other c.d. and music reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.




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What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall: Another Mediocre Live Album.

The Good: Interesting historical document, Moments of musically interesting bits
The Bad: SHORT, Not the best example of the talents of anyone involved, Interstitials, Poor replayability.
The Basics: What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall is a particularly droll live album that holds up poorly over multiple listens.


Those who read my many reviews no doubt know already that I would vastly prefer to go to a concert for a musical artist or performer that I love as opposed to listening to a “live” album of any given concert. I am not fond of the “live” conceits of the crowd noises captured at concerts on recordings – as if the listener would not believe they were listening to non-studio cuts of the songs without such noises! – and the interstitial conversations between live tracks often holds up poorly over multiple listens. This is exactly the reason why it became impossible for me to recommend What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall. But, beyond that, it was a tough sell to begin with and hearing it over thirteen times in the last two days only cemented in my mind the lack of initial quality that I perceived with the first listen.

While What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall might be an interesting historical document – one doubts Ike and Tina Turner will ever be seen on the same stage again – but beyond that, this recording has very limited appeal and merit as a recording. The soul/funk/r&b show was recorded on April 1, 1971 at Carnegie Hall in New York City. The show featured Ike and Tina Turner, the Ikettes (who carry the first two songs on the album) and the Kings Of Rhythm, who provided the instrumental accompaniment with Ike Turner. The show vacillated between some decent, classic (now) r&b, soul and funk songs presented by Tina Turner and the Ikettes . . . and a whole lot of noise. The M.C. for the night, Eddie Burkes, can frequently be heard at the end of songs shouting “Tina Turner!” to try to rustle up more of an audience reaction, as he does on “I Want To Take You Higher” and “Respect.” As well, there is a disturbing, partially inaudible, partially gross exchange between Ike and Tina Turner at the end of “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long” where they sound like they are hocking up goobers at one another. Seriously. This, alas, did not play well the first time and as listen number fourteen begins, I find myself dreading this in particular.

With sixteen tracks, thirteen of which are songs, one of those essentially an extension of the track which preceded it, clocking out at 55:22, What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall is very much not the creative genius of Ike or Tina Turner. Tina is co-credited with presenting her own remarks (“Doin’ The Tina Turner”) and Ike Turner is co-credited with those remarks and a brief musical interstitial (“Ike’s Tune”). But none of the songs presented by Tina Turner or the Ikettes were written by Ike or Tina Turner. Instead, Tina Turner presents the primary vocals on ten of the songs with the Ikettes taking the two opening musical numbers. Ike Turner plays guitar and organ on various tracks, the rest is picked up by the Kings Of Rhythm, and Ike is credited as the producer of the album. But that seems the extent of his creative control; the album is largely Ike, Tina, the Ikettes, and the Kings Of Rhythm performing works created by other people.

When the music is just the music, What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall works. Tina Turner presents a melodic rendition of “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” and she gives a wrenching, almost raunchy version of “Honkey Tonk Women” (by The Rolling Stones) which is very much her own interpretation of it. Indeed, Turner’s version of “Respect” which closes the album is so different from Aretha Franklin’s version that one might never guess it was the same song! And the favorite “Proud Mary” is well-presented here.

The real surprise for me was how wonderful “Piece Of My Heart” in this incarnation was. The Ikettes present their version of Janis Joplin’s “Piece Of My Heart.” Whereas I’ve heard it wrenching and almost painful from Joplin or Melissa Etheridge, the Ikettes make the song groovy and longing on What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall.

But it’s not enough. What You Hear Is What You Get: Ike & Tina Turner Live At Carnegie Hall is short, the funky sound of the songs gets repetitive quickly and the music is broken up by an annoying level of talking which might have been entertaining to see or experience in person, but it holds up very poorly over multiple listens. The listener is lucky if half of the tracks are actually musical numbers as opposed to songs that degenerate into repetitive back and forths between Ike and Tina and/or conversations that become barely intelligible. There is passion, but even that replays poorly over multiple listens.

The result is an album that makes for a marginally interesting historical document, but little else. And the listener is likely to feel cheated by the effort needed to find this disc these days. Fans of soul, funk and r&b might like to hear the recording for one time, hearing the bass, drums and organ which have moments of energy, but there will be little reason to come back to it more than the once. I only hope, should I ever go to a concert where the artists are r&b, soul or funk performers it is more memorable than this recording.

The best song is “Piece Of My Heart,” the low point is “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long.”

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner - Ike and Tina Turner
Private Dancer
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

3.5/10

For other c.d. and single reviews, please visit my index page! There you will find organized listings of my music reviews! Thanks!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Some Interesting Recordings, The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner Is A Tough Sell.

The Good: Good vocals, Some very cool, funky interpretations of some songs, Duration
The Bad: Some covers are more chaotic than melodic.
The Basics: Decent for archiving some of the best and most interesting works of Ike & Tina Turner, The Very Best Of Tina Turner is a good, not great, album.


One of the nice things about utilizing the resources of a local library is that frequently, libraries will turn up rare, out-of-print and/or imported albums. When I began my monthlong exploration of the music of Tina Turner, I had my local library get in everything it could from the libraries within its system and I was pleasantly surprised when they sent over The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner, a rarer import from the UK. After listening to the album almost a dozen times, I find myself generally pleased with it, despite some very odd cover songs which even Tina Turner’s range and Ike Turner’s interpretation and arrangement could not save from being just a little too weird.

The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner is one of those musical treasures that becomes nicer when one reflects that many older albums either have never appeared on compact disc or did and are long out-of-print. Curious about what Ike & Tina Turner were all about? A compilation might be your best bet and The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner works well because it has an exceptional range of songs, though they are almost all cover songs, most of which were tracks which were more recognizably performed by other artists or performers. Still, The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner includes some of their most famous songs, like “River Deep, Mountain High,” “Proud Mary” and “I Idolize You.”

With twenty tracks occupying 71 minutes on a single compact disc, this is an exceptionally good mix of the songs presented by Ike & Tina Turner, including some I have not heard on any other compilations or albums by Ike or Tina Turner. There are very few songs written by either Ike or Tina, but the popular Tina Turner song “Nutbush City Limits” is included and it is a decent recording of the song. Tina Turner provides all of the lead vocals while Ike plays the guitar or organ on the various songs. While Ike produced many of the songs, neither was involved in the production of this compilation. The duo is most frequently backed by the Kings Of Rhythm.

Because this album is harder to find, I’m departing from my usual style to do a track by track listing/commentary on this album. Enjoy!

“River Deep, Mountain High” – A classic Ike & Tina Turner song, this is the standard, soulful recording which featured Ike Turner accompanying Tina on his guitar as Tina sings soulful and energetic. This is one of the easiest-to-find recordings and this version is pretty much the standard one found on every Ike & Tina compilation,

“I Idolize You” – I’ve heard this track many times in many ways, but this is a studio version which is slower, bass-dominated and has Tina Turner singing with a mellow, smoky sound. The result is a funky, soulful track which allows Tina Turner to illustrate her range and ability without any distractions. This recording is also notable for the mellow, noticeable percussion which accompanies Tina’s vocals throughout,

“Nutbush City Limits” – Like most every recording of this song, this is energetic and has Tina Turner telling a musical story in front of some of the funkiest guitars of all time. This is an autobiographical song about a little Southern town,

“Why I Sing The Blues” – Not a blues song at all, Ike’s screeching guitar creates a backdrop for Tina Turner to present some seriously funky vocals. Tina sings essentially about black history as a cultural struggle and she makes it sound funky, gritty and like a slow, menacing groove. It’s astonishing how musical Tina Turner can make singing about cultural oppression,

“Baby Take A Walk With Me” – Ike Turner’s lone vocal outing on the album, this song is a surprisingly jaunty love song. As one who watched What’s Love Got To Do With It at a young age, just hearing a peppy Ike Turner leaves me unsettled. This is a very obvious and simple pop number and Ike has a pretty low voice, but he is stretching upward to the top of his ability, resulting in somewhat scratchy vocals,

“Don’t Look Back” – A blues song, Tina sings low and soulful. This is a track she is able to infuse with a sadness that one cannot help but empathize with. This song of love strained is one of the best examples of Tina’s early songs where she was able to jump registers and she illustrates a talent almost unheard of (it’s her and Ella Fitzgerald for range!),

“Mississippi Rolling Stone” – Tina Turner returns to a higher sound with a very traditional funk-rock song, with her beating out blaring trumpets. Despite her ability, this is a remarkably forgettable and unoriginal track,

“Come Together – Tina Turner presents a very literal cover of the popular song by The Beatles. It’s interesting, but she doesn’t make the song her own in any way,

“Took A Trip” – Another very obvious and typical funk-pop number, this is one of the great “leaving you” classics and Tina Turner has the spunk to infuse repetitive vocals with spite and force each and every time she delivers them. This song works, though it replays poorly as the level of anger of the song is pretty intense,

“I Can’t Believe What You Say” – The whole ensemble gets into this one and this might be best as a historical document. Ike and Tina perform a duet backed by the Kings of Rhythm and the Ikettes and the back and forth between Ike & Tina reminds one of a bad Sonny and Cher comedy routine. This song about mistrust in a relationship is pretty dark,

“I Wanna Take You Higher” – Even Tina Turner can’t save this song, which has dumb, repetitive lyrics. I mean, “fire/higher” was a rhyme done to death and this song does nothing particularly interesting with it,

“Shake” – A dance craze song, this is another unpleasantly repetitive and simple song. Interesting for the funky organ production elements, this is otherwise a waste and a surprisingly noisy song,

“Living In The City” – The album recovers some with this soft, soulful ballad where Tina Turner sings about being on your own in the city. Her opening vocals are so honey-sweet that the saucy nature of the rest of the song becomes a delightful surprise to the ear,

“Get Back” – Another tune originally by The Beatles, Tina Turner covers this one with some surprisingly adept guitarwork from Ike. Turner might not make this one her own, but she does infuse a level of angst into this track which I’ve not heard in any other cover before,

“Humpty Dumpty” – One of the few songs on this album that actually features Tina Turner’s ad libs at the beginning, this is a slower, blues ballad that sounds awfully autobiographical. This is another excellent example of Tina Turner’s vocal range as she starts off low and soulful and goes higher and more poppy in the middle. Still, this has some remarkably simple and repetitive lyrics,

“Stagger Lee” – Last month was the first time I heard this song about urban gambling turned to violence when I was studying the works of Wilson Pickett. The song is no less disturbing or clear with Tina Turner singing it,

“The Loco-Motion” – I’m not sure what is more disturbing: the fact that Tina Turner does this song as a Gospel anthem or that I don’t like it because I’m so used to the perky childish vocals of Kylie Minogue doing it. Either way, this sound more erratic than danceable and that makes the song more unsettling than fun in this incarnation,

“Philadelphia Freedom” – Tina Turner presents Elton John. And it sounds right. Turner has a great voice for anthemic and she makes this song sound big, even through the brass section backing her tries to drown her out. It is unsuccessful. This cover is no more memorable to me than the original,

“Mr. Bootsey White Law” – The arguable highlight of the album, Tina Turner sings about ethnic prejudice and the institutions that were in place to support them, as well as weird, incestuous relationships. This is an alarming song, but Tina Turner sings it in a straightforward fashion that is compelling and well-presented,

And “Proud Mary” – Points would have been taken off if this hadn't been included. The most commercially successful Ike & Tina Turner song is presented as the studio-produced version with Tina singing soft, then rough, with Ike backing her. This is a groovy, wonderful song.

But, as far as albums go, The Very Best Of Ike & Tina Turner is good, within a very specific spectrum. If one wants to hear r&b, blues, funk and soul covers of songs – many of which were in that range initially – this is a good compilation. But the more I listened to it, the more I was glad I was hearing it, but that I would be returning it. In other words, this is a good, not great, album and compilation.

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
Private Dancer
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

5.5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Essential Tina Turner Album: Private Dancer Is Where Most Of The Hits Come From!

The Good: Decent deluxe edition, Good vocals, Decent production
The Bad: 1980s production conceits, “1984” is tough to swallow.
The Basics: Arguably the best Tina Turner album, Private Dancer is loaded with justifiable 1980s hits!


Frequently when I immerse myself in the works of a given musical artist, I will downrate an album where all of the best songs are on the various “Best Of” albums for that artist. But, in my ideal music collection, for every artist I have a “Best Of” album from, there is one other album that shows off the talent of the artist or performer which I feel I must have. So, for example, while I have the two-disc “Best Of” discs from U2, I also have Zooropa on the shelf and for R.E.M., I have Automatic For The People. Those albums both have songs that aren’t on the “greatest hits” works which rival the quality of the tracks that did make it onto the compilations. For Tina Turner, I think the one album listeners ought to have outside her two-disc All The Best is Private Dancer.

Private Dancer on c.d. does what I always hope a c.d. will do when an album originally made on record and cassette is remastered. In addition to cleaning up the sound, Tina Turner and her producers flesh out the capacity of the compact disc with additional tracks. The c.d. version of Private Dancer has b-sides recorded for the singles, as well as three extended versions of three of the hit singles. So, despite getting two marginally different versions of “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” “Better Be Good To Me” and “I Can’t Stand The Rain,” the album scores pretty high with me for being full of surprisingly good pop-rock music!

With seventeen tracks occupying 77:50, Private Dancer is a good use of the c.d. medium, despite being only a fair display of Tina Turner’s myriad talents. While Turner was known to write some of her own songs, that talent is not displayed here as all of the tracks were written by other artists. Ironically, on Turner’s breakout solo album, David Bowie and Lennon and McCarthy have more material than anything of Turner’s! While Tina Turner provides all of the lead vocals and some of her own backing vocals, she does not play any instruments on the album. As well, she was not involved in the production of Private Dancer or any of its tracks.

Private Dancer is the five times platinum album by Tina Turner which spawned the instantly recognizable '80s hit “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” as well as Turner’s hit songs “Better Be Good To Me,” “Let’s Stay Together,” and “Private Dancer.” Most of the rest of the songs on the album have a similar resonance, so even though “I Wrote A Letter,” “Rock N Roll Widow,” and “When I Was Young” were never radio singles, they hold their own against the other songs on the album.

Private Dancer is a very typical 1980s pop-rock album by its instrumentation. This is a keyboard-driven album and Tina Turner might not have had much to do with the creation of her instrumental accompaniment, but she (and her producers) know how to use it well. Songs like “What’s Love Got To Do With It?” may be heavily programmed, but they sound good and they have recognizable tunes. In other words, unlike far too many current pop songs, there is a recognizable melody on almost every song on the album; it is not just a seemingly random collection of musical notes which accompany the vocals. Musically, one of the biggest surprises would have to be that “I Might Have Been Queen” and “Show Some Respect” were never released as successful singles, as they are equally catchy to the single tracks. One supposes even Tina Turner couldn’t chart five hits off a single album (as it turns out, “Show Some Respect” was released as a radio single, it simply did not do so well on mainstream pop-rock radio). The only real exception to the rule as far as instrumental accompaniment goes is on "1984,” where the song is just an auditory mess from the keyboard and drum accompaniment.

Vocally, Tina Turner displays incredible range on her songs on Private Dancer. She goes high, sad and melodic on “I Can’t Stand The Rain,” she goes deeper and throaty on the single “Private Dancer,” and she is emphatic and melodic on “Better Be Good To Me.” On all of the songs, she is articulate and all of her lyrics may be easily understood. On “Don’t Rush The Good Things,” she displays her multi-octave range and even though “Help” is a cover, Turner makes it rock from her soulful presentation.

More than anything else, Tina Turner sings about love and relationships on Private Dancer. Here, listeners are fortunate to have the c.d. and the few extra tracks. Tina Turner captures beautifully the angst in relationships when she sings “Took my pride and I threw it away / You gotta release me from this suffering / You`ll find me everywhere running around / Until you showed up to find me in the gutter / I wrote a letter to my love today / I wrote it so hard on what I gotta say / All my life is ending up the blues / A man can make the poor girl sing the blues / Yeah you can make the white girl sing the blues” (“I Wrote A Letter”). Turner may not have written the lines, but when she sings them, she makes the song resonate and she sings it with the passion of a woman who has been wronged and hurt in the past.

But instead of just being a woman singing about all she dislikes about men and relationships, Tina Turner comes through with a message of strength. While the single “Private Dancer” is disturbing for its lyrics of how a stripper degrades herself for men (hey, in the 1980s, I guess people could make hit songs about virtually anything!), other songs come through with more on the nature of strength and the demand to be loved and respected. “Better Be Good To Me” is an excellent example of that. She muses in the song, before making a demand of her partner with the lines “Should I be fractured by your lack of devotion / Should I, should I? / You better be good to me / That's how it's gotta be now / Cause I don't have no use / For what you losely call the truth / You better be good to me” (“Better Be Good To Me”). And with the force of her voice, Turner makes the song rock and the message stick.

Not all of the songs are winners, though. Most notably, David Bowie wrote a song one suspects even the Thin White Duke himself could not sell, "1984.” Filled with unfortunate rhymes, the song collapses despite having pretty interesting imagery. When Turner sings the lyrics “They'll split your pretty cranium and fill it full of air / They'll tell you that you're eighty and really you won't care / You'll be shooting up on everything, tomorrow's never there / Beware the savage jaw in 1984” ("1984”), the lines are backed with oppressive backing vocals and such overproduced instrumental accompaniment that even Turner cannot save the song.

The best track is “Better Be Good To Me,” the low point is "1984.”

For other works by Tina Turner, please check out my reviews of:
The Best Of Ike And Tina Turner – Ike & Tina Turner
All The Best (2-disc version)
Tina! Her Greatest Hits

8/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my index page for an organized listing of all I have reviewed! That list is updated daily and is available by clicking here!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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