Ric Ocasek
Negative Theater

Despite the pathetic flop of my review of Ric Ocasek's album "Quick Change World" (zero comments as of 31.03.2007), I persist in fixating on the same artist. "Negative Theater" is the entire "Left Side" that Ocasek initially intended to present in "Quick Change World" as he originally conceived.

To briefly recap, "Quick Change World" was a double CD that Reprise refused to release. Ocasek chose to offer, only in the USA and with the same title, a one-CD work with the first seven tracks from CD1 (the "Right Side") and the remaining six from CD2 ("Left Side").

This album, however, is nothing more than the "Left Side" of the original "Quick Change World" project, published only in Europe. The disc begins exactly as the second half of "Quick Change World" (the published one) does, namely with the trio "I Still Believe"/"Come Alive"/"Quick Change World" (which, besides being the title of an unexecuted project and a disc released in the USA, is also the title of a song), which were discussed in the previous review. It’s followed by "Ride With Duce", where Ocasek starts fiercely only to end up speaking in rhythm. He inserts too many "yeah yeahs" between verse and verse, between verse and chorus, because he knows he composed a "lacking" piece. He only sings in the chorus, with long notes that do not suit his weak voice. Then what does he do? He goes into falsetto... Let’s leave it, shall we? An Ocasek in need of self-encouragement, one might say. In difficulty.

Then it's the turn of "What's On TV" (rece-prece). "Shake A Little Nervous" starts with a good bass, then cheap keyboards rise, and then it’s the usual spoken word, better performed than in "Quick Change World" and more inspired. Mind you, even the best among the spoken word songs, to the taste of the writer, doesn't match up to a decent song, and if among Ocasek’s spoken word choices one has to be made, the reviewer prefers the dark ones, because they’re more atmospheric, not the "cheery" ones like this. In the end, this track never takes off, but rather slips away (one might say in the toilet).

How ugly "Hopped UP" is has already been written about previously. Take Me Silver is a pop-rock-spoken word-song like "Ride With Duce"; it goes slower and has less "wordy" verses, giving the voice more space to the rhythms, making it all less pretentious but more "functional". Then what does he do? Decides to hum, inserting a chorus as fitting as a boulder would on a birthday cake candle. Voicemail of apartments on the hundredth floor of a skyscraper, solitary lives among millions of other mute existences... : this is "Telephone Again", 58 seconds for not dying.

And here we are at the best episode of the disc: Alan Vega raves, whispers, mimics, undresses, tears apart, spreads curse, steps out of Ocasek's concept to remind us that the heart is still a muscle that vibrates and strikes hard. The piano-like keyboards (put real pianos!!!!) die in a few notes, the bass starts a relentless gallop, the guitar weeps, like in an endless lullaby, its arpeggio; then Mr. Vega does his show while Enigma-like keyboards rise to give a more epic tone, thank god without ruining anything. Ocasek's awareness chorus for a beautiful track that never wants to end its run, its "Race To Nowhere". The ending is absurd, even for those who have long metabolized the Suicide, and although it’s part of the song, in the booklet, it’s indicated separately as "Torture Dreams by Alan Vega". It's nothing more than a spleen poem from good Alan; he’s one of those who just doesn’t pretend, you can bet on it!

After the anger comes the time to calm down, to reconcile, to plead "Help Me Find America", or better yet "help me find" the America that Ocasek identifies with (not the Bush one, one might guess): people and life are more cruel and violent than they once were when he was twenty. Every night he played for 15 dollars in New York clubs and every night he slept in the bathtub of a known/unknown friend. Try living that life in New York now, try being a libertine, the disheveled one waiting for a label with a major, it seems to suggest... Back then those were the days: 15 dollars a day was all you needed: The rest, everything else, you already had. "Everybody was excited," he writes in the booklet, "trying to do the things they loved, one of which was 'being people'," he concludes. Negative theater for this too, meaning the spectators, the people, who become protagonists. The track "Help Me Find America" isn’t great, all things considered, but it is perfectly packaged (too well?). But it’s the key track, helping you understand that this isn’t a "Left Side": it’s a true concept!

"Who Do I Pay" starts very nice, but the inevitable toy keyboards ruin everything. The result is a kind of hectic punk that's unlistenable, namely the stupid heterozygous twin brother of "Come Alive". With "Wait For Fate" we near the conclusion. On a very '80s sound but well-defined and obsessive, Ocasek's voice, multiplied just as he likes it, delivers a fine performance. "What Is Time" starts off sounding like a Technotronics piece (!) (who would like this stuff in 1993?), perhaps too repetitive and with verses that last too short before the refrain-chorus "what is time/ to you and me/ what is time/ eternity" sets in. But it has a good rhythm (naturally, if it’s Technotronics!) and flows without tiring.

The closing "Fade Away" (excellent title to end a CD) seems plucked from a Japanese garden filled with bonsai and bamboo tubes pouring water from small streams... Once again, the voice's way of playing, which since the "Door To Door" album by the Cars, has obsessed Ocasek, this same voice tries to sing its verses without disturbing a violin from a folk song of the villages near Sapporo. Indeed, it's known, as Tiziano Terzani recounted, Japan is the homeland of the infinitely small, of the manic attention to detail (those interested, read the review of this CD, or read the books of Tiziano Terzani - especially the last - or buy a Lexus). That is minimalism, and this entire disc (though rich in sounds) is pure minimalism.

In summary, Ocasek hits the mark with 2 gems of a minute/ a minute and a half, plays 3 metropolitan protopunks, tries with 2 "happy" spoken words, a couple of rocking ones, and another 3 standard, dark but quality ones. Then he throws in two minimal ballads and hands the mic and spotlight to Alan Vega with "Race To Nowhere".

The spoken word on a rock base doesn't work: 0 out of 2; the proto-punk is fine only on "Come Alive": 1 out of 3; the "gems" are splendid: 2/2; the minimal ballads one holds out the other is superb: 2/2; the "good-humored" spoken words suck: 0/2; we’re used to Ocasek's dark and atmospheric spoken word, but it's all appreciable stuff: 3/3. For a total of 8 good pieces out of 14. The balance tips definitively in favor of the good pieces thanks to Alan Vega and "Race To Nowhere", thus reaching a positive 9 out of 15. Assuming that I’ll say till death that the best spoken word is not worth a good song (and that Cristicchi's song at Sanremo didn't please me even a tiny bit), I will say that, if this concept had had some other dark spoken word, another guest appearance of an uncomprehended/incomprehensible genius (his death would have been Nick Cave, whom Ocasek himself strongly contributed to launching in the USA), and if the punk rock episodes were worthy of "Come Alive", the 5 stars would have been undisputed. But Ocasek, always a producer/lover of himself, can't possibly say to himself "Ric, this piece just isn't good"...

Released in Europe at a time when everything coming from the USA had to be grunge, or pretend to be grunge, or, at best, be grunge unplugged, with its so anachronistically perfect sounds, with its author who hasn't been chasing top chart positions since 1988, and who hasn’t succeeded in becoming a cult figure like David Sylvian or à la Tom Verlaine, this album will do worse than wandering at night. Ocasek won’t even manage to bring the critics back to him, rather worsening everything, when he expands the state of mind of the quite excellent "Race To Nowhere" by pulling a double CD out of the hat in collaboration with Alan Vega, titled "Getcherticktz" ("get your tickets"), a work literally massacred by experts.

Ric's season in hell will continue until 1997, the year in which good Ric meets a dazed guy named Billy.