Cat Stevens: Classic Or Dud?

lookit, i'm about to put it on!
http://web.mac.com/jonesfish/iWeb/Receiver/June17_files/IMG_5906.jpg

I'm really glad I don't know what the hell this means.

Which Pet Shop Boys song? I haven't made/can't make the connection. (And the F. Lips wasn't that egregious a theft, jeez!)

(I say "Classic" because "Where Do the Children Play" and "If You Want to Be Free, Be Free" and "Sitting" mean a lot to me personally [and melodically!], mildly countered by the fact that the "Another Saturday Night" cover is one of my least favorite singles ever; dodging all the religion stuff for now.)

"Boy With A Moon & Star On His Head" = one of the subtler realizations of the singer-songwriter urge of the 70s

"Tea for the Tillerman" and "Here Comes My Baby" = CLASSIC

Ray >>>>> Cat

Huge classic. He's got a few kooky moments, especially toward the end of his output, but overall he is total classic. I love the purity of his songs - the quest so many of his songs are about. I guess some might hear cheesiness but I think it's nearly all really beautiful.

"The Streak" is surely dud. What's the point about a comedy song that isn't funny?

Hmmm.. I must have read the title as Ray Stevens.

Cat Stevens released one great and one almost great album in the early 70s. Don't know the rest of his output too well.

this guy was a singles artist and total pop to the bone until his conversion. albums are pretty patchy.

agree, but boy, whoever was designing those album sleeves didn't get the memo, because those are some of the most Here Is A Proper Album sleeve presetnations of their day

Woke up this morning with "Mona Bone Jakon" in my head & thought of starting this thread. Then heard some other song on the radio this afternoon and was, "Well, this is Cat Stevens C/D day, isn't it?"

TFD.

KLASSIC. best song --> "gonna get myself a gun"

Great singer, I think.

he seems to exist independent of any particular scene (for ex. I don't recognize a single musician in any of his bands or anybody who worked on his records) and he doesn't quite fit any particular tag too well (he does stuff that's obviously too rock for folk, and is sorta too hippie-dippy to fit in with slicker singer-songwriters). He kinda fits in with Jim Croce I guess, except Croce is American and had quite a different approach, much more humorous... still can't make it through an entire album tho.

Hard for me to imagine someone hating this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwdJUcMHRSs

love this guy so much. Teaser + the Firecat is all time classic.

It varies. Early pop stuff: so-so
Teaser thru Buddah & the Chocolate Box: classic
Foreigner: OK-ish
The stuff after that: Dud
Izitso is among the most heinous Dudclumps I can think of.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-WuDK8nU7g

wow that's a pretty shitty MoTown ripoff

ha - that's pretty inarguable, but it has a certain craptacular charm I think. the Cat version on Matthew and Son is a bit more polished. "When I Speak To The Flowers" is the real gem off that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TWd3skb-Rw&a=i28oI7Dj_Sk&playnext_from=ML

really feeling the keyboard player here

Surprised at the amount of duds here. I just assumed everyone was okay with Cat Stevens. I second the 'he seems to exist independent of any particular scene'. Is that the block? That parents generally like Cat Stevens and he doesn't really have a narrative? But hating the songs? Not sure I get that.

He gets a classic from me, because while I might not actively listen to the guy, I can recall at least half a dozen of his melodies. And if I were drunk, and someone put on a Cat Stevens record, I'd happily sing along.

i'd say neither c nor d. i'm "okay with him", but am real fine w/out

classic. he makes me sad and nostalgic in a way that I don't think any other singer consistently does.

just turn up the cat stevens and long for the days before bill gates put so many good polio policemen out of work

The first cut is the deepest is a great song, could've been a motown single.

A letter from him was published in the Toronto Star the other day. Didn't read the piece that prompted it.

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2014/12/01/cats_message_is_still_peace.html

'Matthew & Son' is one of the most unheralded influences on British new wave, I think. The piano lick/chorus (lyrics aside) is something that Gary Numan could have come up with in the late '70s/early '80s. The middle-eight recalls the pre-chorus in Tears For Fears' 'Mad World'!

BABY I KNOW

“Sitting” is such an odd song, it almost reaches the intensity of those John Cale songs where he loses his shit a couple minutes in. And yet he ends a bunch of lines with this vague, half-hearted “or so”/“or something.” Weird songwriting choice!