{"id":27088,"date":"2024-02-24T05:30:56","date_gmt":"2024-02-24T10:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27088"},"modified":"2025-08-17T10:59:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-17T14:59:05","slug":"album-review-al-stewart-songs-on-the-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/24\/album-review-al-stewart-songs-on-the-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Al Stewart \u2013 Songs on the Radio"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"By most any reasonable measure, Al Stewart is not a singles artist. Though the Glasgow-born singer-songwriter has had a long and creatively fertile musical career, his primary artistic vehicle has and continues to be the album. From his earliest days, Stewart has employed his highly literate vision in service of appealing songs, but he always goes deeper: historical contexts and sharp lyrical turns characterize his work. For his trouble, Stewart has enjoyed commercial success alongside critical plaudits: all four of his albums released in the second half of the 1970s found their way onto the Billboard<\/i> album chart. And two of those \u2013 1976\u2019s Year of the Cat<\/i> and Time Passages<\/i> from 1978 \u2013 earned Platinum status.<\/p>\n

During that same period, five of his singles made it onto the charts in the U.S., Canada, Australia, with \u201cTime Passages\u201d soaring all the way to the #1 spot on the Adult Contemporary singles charts in the U.S. and Canada. And in that fairly compact slice of time \u2013 1974 to 1981 \u2013 Stewart would release ten singles in the United states. All of those songs and their b-sides) have been collected on a new set from Real Gone Music, Songs on the Radio: The Complete U.S. Singles 1974-1981<\/i>. So maybe he is<\/i> in fact a singles artist.<\/p>\n

When it comes to albums, whether there\u2019s an overarching concept that ties the songs together (as on 1973\u2019s Past, Present and Future<\/i>) or when there\u2019s just a sonic thread that connects the tunes to each other, Al Stewart always takes a lyrics-focused approach to the work of making a record. A serious student of history, Stewart often ruminates on weighty concepts and places his stories into a wider historical and sociocultural context. But he knows his way around a memorable tune, too, and his skillful combining of those virtues has resulted in some of the era\u2019s most enduring music.<\/p>\n

The new RGM collection presents a chronological rundown of all Stewart\u2019s U.S. singles from the period, using the single edits of the songs in each case. That makes sense, but it presents the songs in a setting quite different from their original configurations on his proper studio albums. On his 1973 concept LP Past, Present & Future<\/i>, the sprawling \u201cNostradamus\u201d runs nearly ten minutes; its single edit clocks in at just over three minutes.<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s folk roots blend seamlessly with rock arrangements; on his earlier tracks, his style can be thought of as a more listener-friendly alternative to Roy Harper. And while Stewart\u2019s commercial apex would come in part through his association with producer Alan Parsons, his pre-Parsons material displays all of the virtues of his later, better-known music.<\/p>\n

Stewart\u2019s solo career began much earlier, with his debut single released (in the UK only) in 1966. This collection centers on his time in the spotlight, U.S. charts-wise. So while \u201cNostradamus\u201d b\/w \u201cTerminal Eyes\u201d didn\u2019t chart, it merits inclusion here. The propulsive, country-rocking \u201cCarol\u201d b\/w \u201cSirens of Titan\u201d was another non-charter, but with \u201cYear of the Cat,\u201d everything changed for Al Stewart. His lyric-heavy songs had such sharp hooks that he won over both fans of the singer-songwriter style and those who enjoyed a cracking good pop tune.<\/p>\n

And this set\u2019s inclusion of b-sides means that those new to Stewart\u2019s body of work get both the hits and tracks that show a different side of his artistry. The melodramatic \u201cSirens of Titan\u201d is just such an example, with clever instrumental flourishes wedded to a catchy arrangement.<\/p>\n

Listeners only have to wait until Track 5 to get to the big ones. \u201cYear of the Cat\u201d b\/w \u201cBroadway Hotel\u201d kicks off the string of hit singles, taking listeners back to the days when evocative, mysterious tunes like \u201cOn the Border\u201d floated across the airwaves, with sentimental (yet never mawkish) songs like \u201cTime Passages\u201d and \u201cSong on the Radio\u201d worked their ways into listeners\u2019 consciousness.<\/p>\n

Unless one is a serious Al Stewart aficionado, most of the songs that round out the second half of Songs on the Radio <\/i>will be less familiar than the hits (he didn\u2019t land a single on the charts after 1980\u2019s Midnight Rocks\u201d b\/w \u201cConstantinople\u201d), but the qualities that brought him commercial success are plainly evident even on those lesser-known cuts.<\/p>\n

Parsons\u2019 production presented Stewart\u2019s music in its best possible light, appealing to both prog\/rock fans and those who wanted something a bit softer. Stewart\u2019s always tasteful instrumentation shines across all the tracks, even when he was somewhat consciously creating music with an eye toward the charts. In any event, that approach didn\u2019t last, with Stewart quickly returning to do what he does best, and doing it brilliantly. As an introduction to the man\u2019s music, Songs on the Radio<\/i> is a fine place to begin. Just remember that there\u2019s much, much more to his work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By most any reasonable measure, Al Stewart is not a singles artist. Though the Glasgow-born singer-songwriter has had a long and creatively fertile musical career, his primary artistic vehicle has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,30,49,51,62,65],"tags":[5366],"class_list":["post-27088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-folk","category-new-release","category-pop","category-rawk","category-review","tag-al-stewart","cat-19-id","cat-30-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088","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=27088"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29915,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27088\/revisions\/29915"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}