{"id":26133,"date":"2023-10-04T05:30:09","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T09:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=26133"},"modified":"2023-10-04T14:49:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T18:49:37","slug":"album-review-andrew-gold-greetings-from-planet-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/10\/04\/album-review-andrew-gold-greetings-from-planet-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Andrew Gold — Greetings from Planet Love"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Andrew Gold<\/a> never got the respect or recognition he so richly deserved<\/a>. He\u2019s best known for his hit single \u201cThank You for Being a Friend,\u201d a pop tune from 1978. On release the tune climbed to the #25 spot on the Billboard<\/i> single charts. And it got a second life when it was used (in a new recording by another artist) as the theme song for the popular sitcom Golden Girls<\/i>. Nice for songwriter royalties, but not so great in terms of Gold\u2019s rock-cred. I mean: Golden Girls<\/i>? C\u2019mon.<\/p>\n

Gold deserved much better. He was responsible for most of what made many of Linda Ronstadt\u2019s hit singles great: he did pretty much everything on those songs, save of course Linda\u2019s vocal. And when he turned his attention to making music for kids \u2013 as he did on a 1996 album called Andrew Gold\u2019s Halloween Howls<\/i><\/a> \u2013 he created something of a classic in \u201cSpooky Scary Skeletons.\u201d<\/p>\n

But as I discovered when I interviewed* friends and loved ones of the late musician (he passed away in 2011), I discovered that among his myriad talents was the ability to mimic his favorite artists. Now, of course, this kind of thing has been done before: XTC gave us the Dukes of Stratosphear<\/i><\/a>, Utopia made Deface the Music<\/i><\/a>, and Neil Innes and his pals conceived The Rutles<\/i><\/a>. Even attempting to move in that kind of rarefied circle takes some (as they say) chutzpah.<\/p>\n

Well, Gold had that, and much more. Though comparatively few would hear of it (or even know of its existence) at the time, in 1997 Gold embarked upon a nearly one-man project he called The Fraternal Order of the All. Crafting some 20 original (but deliciously derivative in the best possible way) tracks, he made Greetings from Planet Love<\/i>.<\/p>\n

The album, released \u2013 like much of Gold\u2019s post \u201870s material \u2013 on a small indie label, inevitably sank without a trace. If you heard anything from it, it would have been the sublime \u201cLove Tonight,\u201d a tune that sounds for all the world like a track from the Pet Sounds<\/i> or SMiLE<\/i> sessions. A skilled multi-instrumentalist and studio rat par excellence<\/i>, Gold nailed everything about Brian Wilson\u2019s arranging style, applying it to a new song that Wilson-at-his-peak could have written himself (but pointedly did not).<\/p>\n

And here\u2019s the thing: \u201cLove Tonight\u201d might not even be the best song on Greetings from Planet Love<\/i>. While the record gets off to a weird start with its brief backward-masking-and-sitar title track, \u201cRainbow People\u201d moves into a stomping psych vibe that will be familiar to anyone who\u2019s spent time with Nuggets II: British Empire and Beyond<\/i>. Or, y\u2019know, Magical Mystery Tour<\/i>. And anyone who thinks to themselves, \u201cYeah, Andrew Gold: great pop songwriter, but he didn’t exactly rock, now did he?\u201d Well, you\u2019ve got another think<\/em> coming.<\/p>\n

Those production tropes of the late \u201860s: flanging, phase shifting, fuzztone\u2026 when used in music, they transport the listener back to a specific place, time and mindset. And Gold\u2019s clever use of those tools does just that. But \u2013 and this is very important \u2013 his songs on Greetings<\/i> aren\u2019t merely vehicles for these sonic tricks; the songs stand on their own, fully developed compositions full of subtlety, ear candy of the sweetest sort.<\/p>\n

Some of the most fascinating moments come on the shortest tracks on the album. Serving as linking tracks, cuts like \u201cSwirl\u201d (a near cousin to the instrumental break on The Beatles\u2019 \u201cBeing for the Benefit of Mr. Kite\u201d) and \u201cWhirl\u201d (a kind of keyboard-led rethink of \u201cTomorrow Never Knows\u201d are tantalizingly brilliant.<\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s predilection for puns and wordplay informs \u201cTube Rye and Will\u2019s Son\u201d (say it out loud, because hey, you\u2019re a genius too). It will inevitably bring to mind the SMiLE<\/i> opening tracks \u201cOur Prayer.\u201d It\u2019s a thing of beauty. \u201cFreelove Baby,\u201d on the other hand, belongs on the soundtrack of an Austin Powers film. It really, really does. \u201cGroovy Party at Jimmy\u2019s Magic Pad\u201d has a soundtrack feel, too, though it would be more suited to an exploitation film of the late \u201860s. It\u2019s wonderfully atmospheric and marginally NC-17.<\/p>\n

Gold\u2019s command of the studio is staggering throughout the record, whether it\u2019s multilayered and crisscrossing vocal parts on \u201cIt\u2019s Beautiful\u201d or the hazy psychedelic balladry of \u201cWink of the Third Eye.\u201d Gold\u2019s deep love (and equally deep understanding) of both mid-sixties Beach Boys and mid-to-late-\u201960s Beatles finds full expression in tracks like \u201cIt Has No Eyes But Sight,\u201d which sounds like what we might have heard had \u201cI Am the Walrus\u201d not faded out after passing the cranberry sauce.<\/p>\n

\u201cSpace and Time\u201d heads in a very different direction. It sounds more like The Byrds than McGuinn and his pals ever did, right down to the vocals and Rickenbacker jangle. It sounds liek the great prime-era Byrds single that never was. \u201cTime is Standing Still\u201d has less of the retro sheen found elsewhere on the album, but it\u2019s another solid pop tune with scintillating harmonies; it\u2019s a bit reminiscent of Brian Wilson\u2019s Imagination<\/i> era work.<\/p>\n

\"\"

The 1996 cover artwork. Meh.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Doors get the Gold treatment on \u201cRide the Snake,\u201d with doomy organ and some very Morrisonesque moanin\u2019 and groanin\u2019. \u201cMr. Plastic Business Man\u201d take the listener back on another Magical Mystery Tour<\/i>, albeit with vocals from Bleecker Street. \u201cCcosmicc Ccarnivall\u201d is a brief throwaway; it sounds like a snippet of an outtake of between-song noodling. But the album wraps with its rockingest number, the brilliant \u201cTomorrow Drop Dead.\u201d Incorporating all of the sonic elements from \u201cTomorrow Never Knows,\u201d Gold creates a completely new song.<\/p>\n

Greetings fr<\/i>o<\/i>m Planet Love<\/i> can be enjoyed on any number of levels. For listeners inclined toward playing spot-the-influence, it will provide hours of pleasure. But considered wholly on its own merits, it\u2019s a simply great album.<\/p>\n

The late \u201890s release of Greetings <\/i>from<\/i> Planet Love<\/i> was CD-only, and it featured some generic and uninspired cover art. The new 2023 reissue bests the original on many fronts. First off, new cover art doubles down on the pastiche aesthetic, featuring artwork inspired by some of Gold\u2019s own drawings. Second, it\u2019s available on vinyl this time around: the album comes in a gatefold sleeve with a pair of bright yellow 10\u201d discs. That\u2019s the perfect format to appreciate fully Andrew Gold\u2019s musical love letter to the sixties.<\/p>\n

*My feature on Andrew Gold\u2019s Greetings from Planet Love<\/i> will appear in an upcoming issue of Record Collector<\/i> magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Andrew Gold never got the respect or recognition he so richly deserved. He\u2019s best known for his hit single \u201cThank You for Being a Friend,\u201d a pop tune from 1978. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26134,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,39,51,57,62,64,65,73],"tags":[192],"class_list":["post-26133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chamber-pop","category-indie","category-pop","category-psych","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-andrew-gold","cat-13-id","cat-39-id","cat-51-id","cat-57-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26153,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26133\/revisions\/26153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}