•
Rating: I know I am in the minority, but for me "Beat" is the best studio album by KC in the last 25 years; while the surprising "Discipline" certainly has the merit of having opened the new phase, "Beat" is more in line with the new wave production standard of the period, thanks especially to the debated contribution of producer Rhett Davies: the rock-gamelan of "Neal and Jack and Me" and "Waiting Man", the ethnofunk of "Sartori in Tangier", the industrial rock of "Neurotica" ("Pictures of a (New York) city"), the perfect pop form of "Two Hands" and "Heartbeat" (the only video made by KC), and finally, the frippertronics of "Requiem" (a "Prince Rupert's lament part two") find here a more concise and vibrant exposition.
The opening track, in particular, built on the guitar counterpoint of "Discipline", here integrated by Fripp's sharp synth (if you listen to the two tracks in sequence, the continuity is evident), is a tribute by Belew to two heroes of the Beat Generation (incidentally, the album includes other references to Beat culture, just mention "Heart Beat", the title of a book by Cassidy, and "The Howler" which recalls the famous poem by Allen Ginsberg), the writer Jack Kerouac and the poet/folk singer Neil Cassidy lost in Paris in a dazzling 1952 Studebaker coupe. Definitely one of my favorite KC tracks, and then how can you not love free verses like "Strange spaghetti in this solemn city... Hotel room homesickness on a fresh blue bed... And the longest-ever phone call home..... no Sleep no sleep no sleep no sleep and no mad. Video machine to eat time...").
P.S.: The tracks of "Beat" and the entire '80s trilogy gain a new dimension in the excellent live "Absent Lovers", recorded during the '84 tour, which I recommend listening to for those who appreciated "Beat".
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
02 Heartbeat (03:54)
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close, feels like mine
all mine
I need to feel your heartbeat heartbeat
so close it feels like mine
all mine...
I remember the feeling
my hands in your hair
hands in your hair
I remember the feeling
of the rhythm we made
the rhythm we made
I need to land sometime
right next to you
feel your heartbeat heartbeat
right next to me.....
05 Neurotica (04:48)
Good morning, its 3a.m. in this great roaring
city full of garbage eaters ravaging parking
spots beneath my plaza window I see cheetah in their
tight skins and tired heels all-night hippo in
the diner crossing the street swarthy herds of young
impala flambastic gibbon even a struggling monza
and over there that brilliant head ornament on that
Japanese macaque but look closely at the hammerhead hand
in hand with the mandrill, its a sight you're
unlikely to see anywhere else on the planet. . .
the stench and the noiose, yes, yes, the howlers
resonating repertoire is not too bad when mixed with
the more musical twern of the tropical warbler but the
impatient taxi blare the squawking elderly ibis and
the glass-eye snapper hawking papers I can certainly
live without also be cautious of the poisonous
boomslang laughter social droppings of the fruit bat
and purple queen fish and who's that babbler conversing
with a magazine stand? Evidently he's getting a good
reply. . .
Arrive in neurotica
through neon heat disease
I swear at the swarming herds
I sweat the foul terrain
I rove the moving scenery
I have no fin
no wing, no stinger
no claw, no camouflage
I have no more to say . . .
Say . . .isn't that an elephant fish on the corner over
there look at that bush baby mud puppy noolbenger
rhinoderma marmoset spring peeper shingleback skink
siren skate starling star-gazer spoonbill and suckers
they seem to be everywhere, well it's a live revue
random animal parts now playing nightly right here in
neurotica. . .
so long. . .
07 The Howler (04:12)
Here is the angel of the world's desire
Placed on trial
To hide in shrouded alley sihouettes
With cigarette coiled
To stike at passing voices
Dark and suspect
Here is the howling ire
Here is the sacred face of rendevous
In subway sour
Whose grand delusions prey like intellect
In lunatic minds
Intent and focused on
The long thin matches
To light the howling fire...
No, no, not me,
Burn, I don't wanna burn.....
Loading comments slowly
