Search - Al Stewart :: Russians & Americans

Al in the 80's

Robert Miller | Eastern USA | 01/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"After not listening to this for a long time, I got the cd. This was the first recording Al put out after a long hiatus I believe was forced on him by lawsuits. I saw him at the Bottom Line in NYC when he released this. The LP came out in an American and European version - the differing tracks were Lori Don't Go Right Now instead of One that got away, and The Gypsy & the Rose instead of Night Meeting. Thankfully they're all on this cd along with some bonus tracks. The One That Got Away is an upbeat and good start to the CD, similar to Year of the Cat. Rumors of war which has great lyrics is a song that I loved in 1984 and hate now. It is plodding and sluggish with an annoying sythesizer riff. Night Meeting is a song that amazingly sounded much better live than on this recording. Accident on 3rd is a Dylan-like song about a car crash and is humorous. Strange Girl is like a punkish version of Bob Dylan's on the road again. The title track is a very good song, pretty. Cafe Society is an excellent song, wild guitar and some pretty great sax playing. 1-2-3 is a political rewrite of the 1960's tune "Primitive country rich in minerals you pay them with beads, tip the generals it's easy..." I love it except for the chick singers in the background. The Candidate is an uncharacteristically folkish tune, pensive, short, nice. The Gypsy & The Rose is nice musically, but the lyrics annoy me, Lori is a very pretty tune - Stewart at his best. In Red Square is the same as The One that Got Away with different lyrics, How does it happen quite literally sucks, and Garp is ok. This is a respectable album, but sometimes that slick 80's sound makes me ill. Phil Kenzie blows the sh@* out of the sax, and sometimes a little subtlety would be preferable to a Clarence Clemmons imitation which wasn't the best type of sound for Stewart anyway. If you skip the annoying songs like Rumors and the others I mentioned, this is an enjoyable album, but for the misses I can only give it 3 and 1/2 or 4 stars not 5. If you want great stuff, check out some of Al's other CD's except for 24 Carrots."

Russians and Americans

J. Lindner | Gem Lake, MN United States | 08/29/2008

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This Cold War-themed album came out during the height of the Reagan era and was Al Stewart's response to the global tensions between the superpowers. Like the Cold War itself this album was really rather irrelevant.



This album represents an attempt to put into music some of Al's political views and it really misses the mark. The title song, 1-2-3, and other tunes really fail to inspire the listener to feel one way or the other about the Cold War or about the political landscape of the time. Al was off his career high (between Past, Present, and Future and Time Passages) and was really settling into a niche of smaller audience venues and no radio time for his new music.



As an Al Stewart fan, I hated to see his career go on this path, but he really lost a lot between the mid-1970s and this record."