- Music
- 12 May 01
There have been some wonderful records in 1986, and Napoleon Dynamite’s little hands of concrete produced two of them.
There have been some wonderful records in 1986, and Napoleon Dynamite’s little hands of concrete produced two of them. If anything ‘Blood And Chocolate’ was better than ‘King Of America’ but ultimately it doesn’t matter; both are indispensable works from pop’s greatest talent. It has been said in these pages before but let’s say it again; Elvis Costello is so good you just have to hate him.
Paul Simon made the other finest waxing in the eloquent and poetic ‘Graceland’, a record filled with wise fun and funny wisdom. Who would have thought the little man could have cut the mustard with just such bravado?
But jazz thankfully offered up fine recordings, of which the best was Wynton Marsalls’ delicious and essential ‘J Mood’, on which the young princes forged a breathtaking tone and control. His earlier album ‘Black Codes’ seems tame by comparison. But compare it to anyone else and it is the goods.
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The prince regent came back and offered up ‘Tutu’, a clever, anxious Miles Davis album that cut out the crap of recent works. But then at year’s end two sax men in the shape of Courtney Pine and Branford Marsalis delivered a clutch of beauts, ‘Journey To The urge Within’ and ‘Royal Garden Blues’, serious jazz music that never falls into the trap of taking itself too seriously.
I also enjoyed Everything But The Girl and Talking Heads but not as much as I have in the past. 1986 was a bad year for pop: it all sounds the same to me and it all sounds the same as stuff I heard years ago. The Velvet Underground boxed-set reminded one that it has never been done as well as they used to do it. Finally; Todd Rundgren’s ‘Acapella’ was a treat as was the final installment in the career of the great Madness. The kings may be gone but the emperor, Napoleon, lives.