GLORIOUS FOOL

This has about as much in common with his folk rock phase, say, "Solid Air" as MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHY's 1980s successes have to do with his early progressive country phase, or, for that matter, PHIL COLLINS and GENESIS superstardom with "Selling England by the Pound". Why mention PHIL COLLINS at all? Because he produced this overly lubricated chart bound affair and contributed percussions.

With that out of the way, one could see this as a continuation of a trend that began with the prodigious "One World" in 1977, and is certainly the logical offspring to "Grace and Danger", just not as consistent or enjoyable, sacrificing genuineness for a variation on early 1980s seductiveness that is ironically a turnoff.

On parallels to COLLINS, as time went by, he became more and more about "I'm a great drummer", and so his banging got high in the mix and insisted on itself. That was beginning to happen in his own career at the same time, and gone was the subtlety of "In the Air Tonight" for instance. The colossally failed funk rockers "Amsterdam", "Perfect Hustler" and "Never Say Never" do much to degrade "Glorious Fool", but even the ballads "Hearts and Keys", like a fossilized DAVID SYLVIAN in terms of dynamism, and the lackluster title cut lack any emotional tilt, while the reasonable remake of "Couldn't Love You More" doesn't add to the song's legacy.

If this was all there was, I would gladly award my first 1 star rating to a MARTYN album, but it's salvaged from the wreckage by a handful of above average numbers, the best of these being "Pascanel". "Didn't do that" proves he could have done better with the aforementioned duds, and might have inspired the likes of a few now renowned Senegalese artists. "Don't You go" has been oft covered and represents Martyn's best excursion into a unique take on trad sounding folk, as opposed to his more transparent "Spencer the Rover" from some time back.

While this is clearly a 2 star album, it's better than his others of that caste, while any fool can see it's worlds away from his glory days.

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