Shazam!
I’m starting to notice a pattern in this project: albums I expect to be a disappointment yield riches, and albums I’m looking forward to turn out to be disappointments. Today’s album falls into the latter category.
I only knew The Move from their singles, which I like, and I expected Shazam to be in the same vein. It isn’t, and none of the six tracks (three originals and three covers) have any singles potential. In another theme I’ve mentioned before, it’s also an album by a band that’s had its day and is breaking up. Lead singer Carl Wayne left just before the album was released, soon to be replaced by Jeff Lynne and The Move soon became the Electric Light Orchestra.
Joe Boyd (an early fan) wrote in his White Bicycles:
The Move were ambitious, working class kids from Birmingham with no desire to change the face of music, preach peace and love or promote altered consciousness; they just wanted to be rich and famous… Their music verged on psychedelia, but it was a beer drinker’s psychedelia. (pp114-115)
Shazam is, I’m sorry to say, pretty poor stuff. It is well played and produced, but the songs don’t grab me and the arrangements, while complex, are identifiably 1960s. I’ve had my head in 1970 long enough now to recognise that Shazam already sounded dated on release (dead on arrival if you ask me, but a casual search online shows that it has its fans). The bits that show a Beatles influence, such as the string quartet on the lyrically arch Beautiful Daughter, call back to the Sgt. Pepper era, when, with Abbey Road, the Beatles had already opened the door to the seventies.
Listening a second time, I pinned my dissatisfaction on Carl Wayne’s vocal mannerisms. I got annoyed by a truly awful version of Tom Paxton’s Last Thing On My Mind, until I realised it improved immensely the moment Wayne shut up and the band got on with it. My guess is that principal songwriter Roy Wood had already worked out where the problems were.
Note: Wikipedia simply says Shazam was released in February 1970 with no specific date given. Late in the day, after this was written, I found out the release date was 27 February. I could have held this over until then, but to be honest I just wanted to get it out of the way and move onto something I might like or appreciate a bit more.
It’s all on Spotify if you feel inclined towards 40 minutes of misery. In the meantime, here’s The Move doing some poptastic miming in 1967. Flowers in the Rain, indeed.
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