I know: if I start one more review with “I'm not really into [insert artiste name] but I bought this album” I'll probably be attacked on the street! Yet it's true: I'm not, and never have been, much of a fan of Tina Turner, and I couldn't tell you what possessed me to buy this album, but I was very glad I did in the end, as it's truly excellent. Given that it's her sixth album it's perhaps not that surprising, since Tina had had at this point over ten years to have perfected her sound. However, she only really came back into the limelight and to prominence as a solo artist in 1984, having left Ike in the mid-seventies and struck out on her own with very little success. “Private dancer” was the album that thrust her firmly back into the spotlight, and into the charts, and during the latter half of the eighties she was one of the hottest properties in music, and could do no wrong.
Break every rule --- Tina Turner --- 1986 (Capitol)
After the phenomenal success of the previous album, and the virtual rebirth of Tina Turner as a saleable commodity, this album was really seen as the “second album syndrome”, the one which would prove once and for all whether “Private dancer” was a fluke, an aberration, a fad, or whether Tina was really back to stay. Like expensive wine discovered in an old cellar and consumed with gusto, was this album going to be the hangover that would have everyone wondering what the hell they had been drinking, and with the clear light of day and the cold reality of sobriety, consign “Break every rule” to the trash-heap of music history?
The album proved more than a match for its millions-selling predecessor, and also showed that Tina could call in some big guns when required, with people like Bowie, Adams and Knopfler all contributing, whether playing on, writing or producing the album. It's a storming statement that the Queen was back. But it very definitely is, to borrow an old footballing cliché, a game of two halves. It opens, it has to be said, rather disappointingly with the stolid, flat “Typical male”, a sub-disco/dance number that was, unaccountably, the first single from the album, which makes me wonder even more why I bought the album, as I certainly don't rate this. There's nothing special about it; anyone could have written it and anyone could sing it, and yet her name was so big at this point that it went to number two. Well, I would say it
is number two, but there you go...
Luckily enough it soon settles down, and “What you get is what you see” is far rockier fare, rather odd in a way, as it, and the next three, are all written by the same team that penned the godawful opener, Terry Britten and one half of Gallagher and Lyle, Graham Lyle. The guitar sound on this is classic Mark Knopfler, and though the album notes don't say so, he has to be playing geetar on this! It's just his sound, through and through, and he is on the album somewhere. It's a good boppy rocker, and soon banishes the memories of “Typical male”, with a sort of “Twisting by the pool”/”Walk of life” melody and rhythm, then we're into “Two people”, a ballad with more than a touch of “What's love got to do with it” from the previous album about it. Decent song though, with some very nice keyboards from either Billy Livsey or Nick Glennie-Smith, not sure which. The song also retains influences of Champaign's “How 'bout us”, and is light and breezy, not quite throwaway, but a bit of a letdown after the powerful track that preceded it. Not much in the way of guitar here, very synthy.
Things stay more or less light with the disco-like “Till the right man comes along”, and really up to this point I'm sure I was shaking my head and wondering what the
hell I had been thinking, buying this pile of cr--- but wait. Once we get beyond the Britten/Lyle machine things start to get a whole lot better, I definitely remember that. The whole timbre, style and most importantly quality of the album changes. Which is not to say the guys can't write a good tune --- they did, after all, pen “What you get is what you see” --- but the majority of what they contribute here to what would have been basically the first side of the album is very weak and generic, and had it not been for Tina pulling in the writing power of people like Bryan Adams and Mark Knopfler, this album could have been a real turkey.
Their last contribution, thank god, is “Afterglow”, another dancy, bass-ridden throwaway, with a nice bit of funky guitar it has to be said, and a certain sense of Judie Tzuke circa “Ritmo” (whaddya mean, who? Philistine!) and then we're into the real songs. It's almost like two different albums in one. The powerful, dramatic, almost ominous “Girls”, penned by the Thin White Duke himself, shows what Tina can do when given proper material to work with. Haunting keyboard strains keep up a counterpoint behind her as the song picks up a little speed, and the intensity builds as she sings of basically how hard it is to be a woman, but without any cliché (would you expect less of Bowie?). The song powers up to a strong, passionate climax (sorry; well, it does!), with Phil Collins firmly ensconced on the drumseat, and all of a sudden you're in a totally different land, almost having to check the album cover to make sure you're still listening to the same one!
And it just gets better from there on. With the mark of Bowie's class firmly imprinted on it, what could have been a second-rate failure becomes a true winner, a donkey suddenly becomes a thoroughbred, an ugly duckling turns into... well, you get what I'm trying to say. The album improves, is basically the thing, so much so that it really is amazing. Bryan Adams' “Back where you started” delivers another well-needed kick up this album's backside and also sets fire to it for good measure. With opening organ chords then crashing guitar you know this album has finally arrived.
Okay, so in fairness, it sounds like a Bryan Adams song: you can hear him singing it in your head, and she almost imitates his scratchy croak, but man is it a powerful song! The sense of relief I remember washing over me, starting with “Girls” and continuing to the end of the album almost without pause, is again a fantastic feeling. To think I believed I had wasted my money! Just proves you need to stick in there right to the end, just to make sure. The man is on piano, guitar and backing vox, and his old mate Jim Vallance (who of course wrote the song with him) is on percussion, with Tommy Mandel going crazy on the keys, and it's a revitalisation of the album: we're well on our way!
The title track just keeps the new quality of this album going, with a great uptempo rocker featuring some superb keyboard work from Rupert Hine, who also helps out on producing and co-writes this song. It's just infectiously catchy, if that's not an oxymoron: this sort of hook could land a Great White shark, I kid you not! You try sitting still when you listen to it, and the production is totally faultless. Perfect backing vocals just add to the layers of quality on this track, and it's Mark Knopfler who steps in next to add his writing expertise to the album, and though in fairness “Overnight sensation” is something of the weakest of the “side 2” tracks --- basically a Dire Straits song --- it's still miles better than the bulk of side one.
But the album ends powerfully and strongly, on two perfect ballads. The first, penned by Irish star Paul Brady, “Paradise is here”, is a lovely mid-paced, almost uptempo ballad with some gorgeous sax from the great Branford Marsalis, and then the album finishes strongly and dramatically, on “I'll be thunder”, a real power ballad co-written again by Rupert Hine, with almost Steinmanesque phrasing, allowing Tina to really show off her powerful vocal chords, with strong, insightful piano, lovely guitar which is at once laidback and then fierce, and an emotive string section fleshing the song out to give it its full potential, and finishing the album with a dramatic flair and a real touch of class.
It's totally amazing, as I say, how different the two sides of this album are, and if I listened to it again, for purposes other than review, I'd elect more than likely to only listen to the second side, as the first is mostly just better forgotten. I got “Foreign affair” after this, and recall it not being a patch on “Break every rule”, so maybe I came in at just the right place, for me, within Tina Turner's discography. I doubt I'll listen to another of her albums again, but this was a hell of a surprise, and a very pleasant one, though I had to persevere to get to the good stuff.
Just shows you though: persistence pays off.
TRACKLISTING
1. Typical male
2. What you get is what you see
3. Two people
4. Till the right man comes along
5. Afterglow
6. Girls
7. Back where you started
8. Break every rule
9. Overnight sensation
10. Paradise is here
11. I'll be thunder