![\"wensday\"](\"http:\/\/www.musoscribe.com\/images\/wensday.jpg\")
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Picking up Torch Rock\u2122<\/i>, one would expect an outing not dissimilar to late 70s\/early 80s efforts by Karla DeVito and Ellen Foley; there’s a mock-operatic approach to the proceedings, much like the sort of music Jim Steinman composed for Meat Loaf’s Bat Out of Hell<\/i>. And the master of ceremonies here is the estimable Dick Wagner, well-known and admired for his work on Lou Reed’s Rock N Roll Animal<\/i> (that’s him as co-lead guitarist on the epic intro to “Sweet Jane”), and albums by Alice Cooper and KISS.<\/p>\n
It might be a mischaracterization to call this Wagner’s album, but there is evidence to support that assertion. The guitarist\/producer is credited or co-credited as composer of every track, and his playing, arranging and production is all over the album. (The album’s putative front person Wensday co-wrote seven songs.) Wensday’s pipes are impressive enough, and Wagner’s clean production applies shockingly little treatment\/effects to the vocals, suggesting that Wensday is every bit as fine a singer as she sounds on record. And that’s saying something.<\/p>\n
The arrangements — mostly midtempo — have enough going on to provide interest, all in the service of the vocal. The problem is that in 2008 there doesn’t seem to be much of a market for this kind of thing. Last I checked, nobody actually asked for a modern take on romantic pomp-rock. And calling the album Torch Rock\u2122<\/i> — yes, they’ve trademarked the term — is more than a little pretentious.<\/p>\n
Still, this is a quite pleasing offering for fans of this style. But said fans likely don’t number enough to make a financial case for a followup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Picking up Torch Rock\u2122, one would expect an outing not dissimilar to late 70s\/early 80s efforts by Karla DeVito and Ellen Foley; there’s a mock-operatic approach to the proceedings, much […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,65],"tags":[677,2532],"class_list":["post-9365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pop","category-review","tag-dick-wagner","tag-wensday","cat-51-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365","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=9365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9366,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9365\/revisions\/9366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}