Rod Stewart
Another Country

But look at him, admire him everyone: the shiny jacket, the highlights, the plastic pose, the features of an Italian sly fox. But I say, how can you not love this man? And indeed I have always loved him, more or less: Rod Stewart is a name I have known practically forever, I have always liked him on a personal level, yet I never bothered to delve into him until today. Rod Stewart the tabloid star, Rod Stewart the billionaire bon vivant, Rod Stewart the yuppie icon, Rod Stewart the plump, Rod Stewart the "cruise singer for Milfs in heat," or rather, no, Rod Stewart the born-again Christian: oh yes, Rod Stewart, today, is primarily this. "Another Country" is an album that's absolutely impure: smooth, glossy, sugary Middle Of The Road of extreme center crammed with female choruses, love, optimism, and then more love, some references to Jesus Christ Our Lord... well, let's just say that on paper it is sickening, but, but...

"But it's just sickening," some will tell me, and it's a fully understandable and well-founded point of view that I do not intend to contest in the slightest. I very much know that this is light stuff, yet it's light stuff that glides by lightly and manages to entertain with sticky and sloppy pleasantness, especially in a period like this: the Winter Solstice celebration is just around the corner, and as if that weren't enough, the Holy Father is about to inaugurate an extraordinary and feasting Jubilee! So open your heart, people, and let it drown in a whirlwind of good feelings! Well, perhaps all these mockeries are a bit gratuitous; among the seventeen (too many, TOOOOO MANY) songs of "Another Country" there are some pleasant moments, the cheerful "Walking In The Sunshine" and above all those of irish/country inspiration, like "Love Is", "Hold The Line", and the title track, which excites me quite a bit (the marches with fiddle are one of my many guilty pleasures, see also "I Wish I Was In Dixie"). Adorable, if they can be called that, are also some ultra-saccharine ballads dripping with benevolence like "Way Back Home" and "Batman Superman Spiderman"; the more bluesy-rock episodes are a bit endearing, especially in such a context, with the partial exception of an enjoyable "Please" at the beginning of the album. I note that at least seven songs (and I'm being conservative) are completely superfluous.

So, "Another Country" is a mediocre and in some respects even reprehensible album: conservatism with rose-colored glasses, this is the "message" it conveys, and I would say that it's no coincidence that RS is the most successful English artist in the USA: in terms of saccharinity, benevolence, and sycophancy, this album has nothing to envy of the mainstream country heavyweights. Still, there's some good melody left and at times a hint of pleasant, carefree lightness: old-school British; by now at the digestif but still preferable to many pseudo-engaged and pseudo-refined golden mediocrities of more recent times. Goodbye Rod, it's been a pleasure.