{"id":15345,"date":"2018-10-06T05:30:20","date_gmt":"2018-10-06T09:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=15345"},"modified":"2018-10-06T09:05:16","modified_gmt":"2018-10-06T13:05:16","slug":"album-review-the-goldwyn-experiment-avenue-b","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/10\/06\/album-review-the-goldwyn-experiment-avenue-b\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Goldwyn Experiment \u2013 Avenue B"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"An elegiac piano melody, \u201cPrologue,\u201d kicks off the album, with a feel not totally removed from Jim Steinman\u2019s Meat Loaf-era work. It\u2019s subtle assured and inviting. Toward the end of a track, a yawning cello takes over, establishing a more unsettled vibe. All of that leads the listener unprepared for \u201cVodka Tea,\u201d which seems to draw from ska and Eastern European rhythms; the tune\u2019s bridge veers tentatively into progressive rock. The skittering drum pattern of \u201cBag of Nails\u201d leans in a sort of dance-funk styled hard rock; it\u2019s the most conventionally rock-oriented tune so far on Avenue B<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cSad Boy Summer\u201d kicks off with a similarly rocking feel, but quickly shifts gears into a hp-hop piece with a standard-issue (but not at all bad) rock backing. \u201cFast response\u201d is dramatic, nearly over-the-top art-rock.<\/p>\n

Things continue in that manner, jumping from style to style, seemingly at random. \u201cInterlude\u201d is a lovely jazz trio piece that may lead listeners to think Avenue B<\/i> is a various-artists collection. \u201cWhale Jail\u201d has Latin flavors (no, really<\/i>). \u201cArrows\u201d is a pop ballad. \u201cLet it Snow\u201d is the first tune that sounds much like anything else on the album; it combines the jazz and pop styles of the two songs that came before it. It\u2019s also among the best thing on the whole album. \u201cQueen of the Night\u201d is more drama and atmosphere. The set ends with the complex, ambitious and delightful piano-led jazz of \u201cEpilogue.\u201d<\/p>\n

I understand what the artist is going for here — a kind of autobiographical musical travelogue — but from a listener’s perspective, Avenue B<\/i> doesn\u2019t seem to know what sort of an album it wants to be. It\u2019s easy to imagine any given listener enjoying three of four cuts here \u2013 maybe the jazz tracks, perhaps the rockers or ballads or ethnic excursions \u2013 but it\u2019s exceedingly difficult to imagine many people staying along for a ride along the entire length of Avenue B<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An elegiac piano melody, \u201cPrologue,\u201d kicks off the album, with a feel not totally removed from Jim Steinman\u2019s Meat Loaf-era work. It\u2019s subtle assured and inviting. Toward the end of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15346,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,62,65],"tags":[3574],"class_list":["post-15345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-new-release","category-rawk","category-review","tag-the-goldwyn-experiment","cat-49-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15345"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15347,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15345\/revisions\/15347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}