Bob wrote:
<< She's been quoted as saying that she feels the DED was not HER project.
Klein
collaborated with her on some of the songs, which was pretty unprecedented,
and he & Dolby introduced lots of synthsized effects that she would not have
chosen on her own. >>
<< DED is also a nice time-piece, and is sonically solid, even if some of
the
songs aren't up to Joni's usual standard, some are, they were just produced
badly. >>
Hi again from Stockholm, music lovers.
"Avoid Dolby at any cost", a reviewer (who's name slips my mind and who was
wrong) wrote in 1980 when Joan Armatrading did an album called Walk under
Ladders on which a certain Thomas Dolby Robertson, esq. had a part. There
has been some food for that thought due to reported difficulties attributed
to Dolby in relation to DED, with or without fairness.
In 1985, Dolby was one of the hipster-dufus-"wunderkind" (take your pick)
producers - with a couple of intriguing albums under his wing, a US top hit
(She Blinded Me With Science) and an outstanding production called Two
Wheels Good/Steve McQueen (different names in US and EU, due to some name
dispute in the US) with British band Prefab Sprout (find it!). He was a
revered force for some of us who relished in his freshness and total
disregard of the contemporary dreariness of the times with everyone dressing
up in Max Max gear and going stupid electronic (blip, blip, schmuck,
schmuck). Dolby was intelligent electronic, his sounds BREATHED and his
songs were like little movies. Very atmospheric.
Just like Joni. I still remember entering the record store in the fall of
'85 and finding DED on the News wall. Eagerly picking it up and seing the
name Dolby on the cover I though that maybe there is a divine plan (and that
God mustn't always a boogie man) after all, for here were two of my
favourite musicians who I'd never thought would work together, but here they
do and all of a sudden it felt the perfectly natural thing for them to do. I
grabbed it, (together with an other new release-cum-masterpiece called Slave
to the Rhythm with Grace Jones who isn't scary but very nice and cool but
who was at the time going out with a Swede called Dolph Lundgren who became
a very bad actor and it's all you Americans fault because you keep giving
him parts) and ran home to my turntable. At that time, I was in total awe.
But the result could have been better. Revisiting it today, I'm surprised of
its too electro-sounding production, being much more so than previous Dolby
efforts. Had they had a similar approach to it as the Prefab Sprout album or
even some of Dolby's solo work, I think it would have sound better today.
Still there are some wonderful tracks on it, like Good Friends, Impossible
Dreamer, Shiny Toys and Tax Free (with that great ham performance by Rod
Steiger and the most tasteful "f**k it!" in the history of arts and
entertainments as we know it).
Dolby had some hard times after DED. Besides having the bad taste to involve
himself in a movie called Howard the Duck, he also got sued by the Dolby
noise reduction company. And he got a somewhat bad rep after the DED
experience.
Exactly what went on in the studio at the time, I of course don't know. I
can only conclude that Chalkmark has some of the same "characteristics" as
DED, with Dolby on only one track (he seems to have been invited back, after
all?) and that these albums shows Joni giving a go at the most sophisticated
of electronic sounds of that era, when they had some breathtaking
synthezisers like the Fairlight CMI, also used by other great maverick
contemporaries such as Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. I think Joni proved
herself one of those great mavericks once more.
I also like the fact that
The-Artist-who-gave-us-that-wonderful-Help-Me-quote-on-a-song-called-The-Bal
lad-of-Dorothy-Parker, (at that time simply known as Prince), a great fan of
both Joni and Dolby at the time, approached the latter at a party and told
him that he still believed in him.
So do I. I think that this British enfant terrible is somewhat misjudged and
deserves some redemption. Hence this lengthy post.
By the way, is it true that Prince and Joni did some songs together in the
eighties?
Ill be back one day, to defend Mingus.
Cheers from Jan
NP: Thomas Dolby, Budapest by Blimp
