{"id":27072,"date":"2024-02-20T05:30:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-20T10:30:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27072"},"modified":"2024-02-09T13:10:53","modified_gmt":"2024-02-09T18:10:53","slug":"album-review-neon-leon-1979-84-singles-collection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/02\/20\/album-review-neon-leon-1979-84-singles-collection\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Neon Leon \u2013 1979-84 Singles Collection"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-27073\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/neon_leon.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/neon_leon.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/neon_leon-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/neon_leon-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Here\u2019s one out of left field. I\u2019ll admit a complete lack of knowledge of Neon Leon, but even a few seconds into \u201cRock \u2018N Roll is Alive,\u201d the opening track on this new compilation from HoZac Records, I realized what I had been missing. Imagine Mott the Hoople crossed with New York Dolls, and you&#8217;ll have a rough sense of the musical perspective of this Black artist form the Big Apple. This collection brings together eight tunes, each of which has the raw energy and enduring spirit of rock, with plenty of punk energy. When Leon screams before the guitar break in \u201cX-Rated,\u201d you\u2019ll believe that he <em>means it, maaaannn<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGirls, Guns &amp; Money\u201d feels like a more melodic take on the kind of thing Jim Carroll did. The spare \u201cNoh Time\u201d feels like a demo, and shows the reggae side of Leon\u2019s artistry. It\u2019s less interesting than the other tracks, but still worthwhile. Much better is the steamrolling rock blast of \u201cMoving in the right Direction.\u201d Some hint as to who plays what and when would have been nice, but ultimately, the music speaks doe itself. As the saying goes, there are a million musical stories in the naked city, and this is one of the better unheralded ones.<\/p>\n<p>Todd Novak\u2019s q&amp;a with the man himself provides some useful context, including some background on how Leon nearly hit the big time thanks to an association with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. (Mick <i>did<\/i> sing \u2013 if exceedingly briefly \u2013 on Leon\u2019s cover of \u201cHeart of Stone,\u201d included here; its bootleg quality and sloppy instrumentation are odd outliers on this compilation of well-played, well-produced tracks.) The inner sleeve features some great black-and-white photos that hint at what it must\u2019ve been like there and then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here\u2019s one out of left field. I\u2019ll admit a complete lack of knowledge of Neon Leon, but even a few seconds into \u201cRock \u2018N Roll is Alive,\u201d the opening track [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,39,59,62,65,73],"tags":[5362],"class_list":["post-27072","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-compilation","category-indie","category-punk","category-rawk","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-neon-leon","cat-19-id","cat-39-id","cat-59-id","cat-62-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072","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=27072"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27074,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27072\/revisions\/27074"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}