THE MAN WHO COULDN'T AFFORD TO...

Welsh-born John Cale became known, like the American and more legendary singer- songwriter Lou Reed, as a member of the Velvet Underground. In his solo career Cale can be seen as a case of fall-in-between: too weird and avant-minded for the big pop/rock audience but often his albums are still too close to mainstream and lacking notably progressive elements to make him a big artist in the eyes of prog listeners either.

His album Fear (1974) is not among his artiest or most experimental, but it belongs to his 'classic albums' era of the 70's. The main collaborators are the Roxy Musicians Phil Manzanera and Brian Eno. This single features a song from Fear and a non-album B-sider. Unfortunately neither of them are very interesting. 'The Man Who Couldn't Afford to Orgy' (here for some reason the last word is marked as ...) is, according to All Music Guide's review, "a delightful Beach Boys pastiche". Yeah, something like that it attempts to be, but it definitely lacks the charm, energy and studio wizardry of Brian Wilson's finest achievements. At most, it is lukewarm nice, not delightful.

'Sylvia Said' is clearly better in my opinion, though not any proggier. It is a mellow, peaceful song with a beautiful, acoustically oriented arrangement featuring also some viola.