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!

sometimes my Mom goes to the record shop with me and she always picks stuff out of the dollar bin for me to check out, it's usually garbage I really don't like such as Joe Cocker and James Taylor but she also grabbed Tea for the Tillerman and holy cow this album is amazing. she's still got a hit rate of about 5% but still kudos for this one

my favorite album of his

Believe it features prominently in a certain scene in La maman et la putain.

I like it too and along with Teaser and the Firecat probably his most engaging albums, but it took a while for me to get into them.

I had a music teacher in elementary school who taught "Wild World" to us - I didn't know Cat Stevens at all, but IIRC she interpreted the song as something he wrote for his daughter. I kind of forgot about the song after that or at least didn't play it for myself until years later when I discovered it had been widely interpreted as sexist. Unfortunately it was something I could hear myself upon revisiting it, even though I thought the musical elements were undeniable, and after an extensive search I couldn't find anything to suggest that it was intended the way my old teacher interpreted it. I eventually tried the album, and I had similar experience with "Sad Lisa" - musically undeniable, but the more I processed the lyrics, the more they stuck out as a major flaw. I didn't really play any of his music for a while, but between Wes Anderson's films and the warm and charming interviews he gave when he did a rare tour not too long ago, I decided to give his music another chance. I guess now I just focus on what I like about those albums and what I don't like come off as too-common flaws you'd find with anyone who's very young with a ways to go in becoming a wiser and more sensible person in their romantic life.

Beyond those two albums, Mona Bone Jakon is pretty good (I think most of the Harold and Maude songs came from that one) and there are some great compilations covering the highlights of his earlier years - I may prefer those songs to the later ones that made him a household name in the U.S.

rick wakeman tells a good story about "morning has broken," about how he got called into the session where they had a great tune that was only a minute and a half long and he had to come up with something on the spot to fill it out to single-length.

maybe she picked out the wrong joe cocker album?

There's a right Joe Cocker album?

either of the self-titled's, mad dogs, greatest hits...but that's a topic for a different thread.

oh, and his first one, "with a little help..", duh.

Yes