Ed Takes A Beat Down, Alive - "It's Depressing" Options

[Hoodstock]

I posted this review in the review thread, but I didn't want it to get burried because this author seems to know Live and has listened to the music carefully. Here it is:

Alright, I don't think this has been posted. This has to be the most analyzing and critical negative review I have seen yet :



Ed Kowalczyk: Alive

By Mike Schiller 27 July 2010

The very first thing Ed Kowalczyk gives us on Alive, his first solo effort, is a driving metaphor, squeezed like an orange and twisted like a lemon. The song is called “Drive”, after all, and as such, the chorus must consist entirely of such a metaphor. Here it goes:

Here I am standing inside your love
Like a child falling asleep at the wheel
Of my life, and letting you drive
I’m letting you drive

Here I am right where I belong
On the shoulder, handing off the keys
Close my eyes, and letting you drive
I’m letting you drive

In capable hands, a songwriter can get some solid mileage out of a driving metaphor. Michael Stipe did (“Drive”), Jakob Dylan did (“One Headlight”), hell, the Beatles did (yes, “Drive My Car”). Kowalczyk’s hands, it seems, are no longer capable of crafting this sort of metaphor into anything meaningful, much less intelligible. Ignoring for a second the confusion of tense that appears in the second half of the refrain (which admittedly only happens once, at the end of the song), the primary, repeated refrain can’t even decide whether the act of handing over the wheel is intentional or not. “Falling asleep at the wheel” implies an unconscious, accidental sort of ceding of responsibility, even as “letting you drive” and the later “handing off the keys” indicate trust and a reasoned decision. Which is it? Is it both? Is it neither? Why would a child be at the wheel anyway?

And even amongst all of this confusion, this metaphor choked to the point of meaninglessness, Kowalczyk finds the time to insult our intelligence with the words “of my life”. Those words appear just in case the metaphor was flying over his listener’s heads, you see.

Given Kowalczyk’s history as a songwriter, it’s easy to give him the benefit of the doubt. As the lead vocalist of Live, Kowalczyk’s righteous fury and earnest, searching spirit earned the band a devoted group of fans left behind by Seattle’s grime. “Lightning Crashes” is one of the few lasting anthems of the ‘90s, a “Circle of Life”-style parable that actually comes across as sincere and authentic thanks largely to the vivid imagery of Kowalczyk’s lyrics.

The benefit of the doubt should allow us to see “Drive” as an aberration. And we do, until “Drink (Everlasting Love)” arrives with a refrain that is every bit as awful as “Drive”:

Now I’ll drink you like water
Drink you like freedom
Drink you like the nectar that falls from Eden

Drink you like water
Drink you like the everlasting love

So…you drink freedom? You drink “everlasting love”? Is Eden in the sky? Why is nectar falling from it?

What in God’s name is Kowalczyk talking about?

This ridiculousness, it just keeps happening. “In Your Light” is the requisite ode to his children, a trick he pulled off on Live’s “Heaven” by putting his kids in a chorus that swooped and soared. It starts off just fine, personal and a little bit touching, but eventually he’s singing about mountains and valleys and he loses us. In “Rome”, he gives up on lyrics altogether for the chorus, content to sing “oh oh ohohoh” over and over again, before pronouncing that “this love will shine on”. “Stand” turns the central theme of the best track on 1991’s Mental Jewelry (that would be “The Beauty of Gray”) into a trite exercise in cliché (“What are we fighting for?” and “Stand tall with me!” both appear over and over in the song), ditching the intensity and earnestness of youth for know-it-all treacle.

Alive‘s lead single (and best song) “Grace” is being pushed to Christian Rock Radio, which is understandable—while Jesus Christ is never specifically namechecked on the album in another hollow attempt at alienating nobody, it’s clear that he’s the inspiration for much of it. This is not something to hold against it. Rather, it’s unfortunate that it falls into so many of the pitfalls associated with the genre. Rather than being an exciting album from an established artist with the potential to push the bounds of the genre beyond the overpowering sentiment and preachiness that genre is so associated with, Kowalczyk has fallen into every single one of its weaknesses.

Why so much time on the lyrics? Because it sounds like Live. It sounds like the worst parts of Live. It sounds like musicians who can actually play trapped in the bounds of ‘90s-era AOR. There’s just not much to talk about.

There’s nothing fun about this. There’s nothing fun about tearing down an artist that once commanded so much respect, an artist who once seemed above the drama and the angst that rock music was mired in. If Alive is truly a rebirth for Kowalczyk, if he truly believes what he’s saying and he’s moved beyond the band he fronted for so many years, then good for him. Chalk this review up to a matter of taste. What it looks like, however, is an album whose title is a direct swipe at the band that made him, an album featuring an artist who refuses to be edited, an album that deals in a calculated sort of emotional manipulation that comes up short of its targets in every conceivable way.

This isn’t fun. It’s depressing.


http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/128555...owalczyk-alive/

[Wambangalang]

i didnt think TDTH was christian at all. "The big-bang never blew me away. Adam and Eve never made the grade".

i thought he only made his mind up recently with regards to his faith...

[sh4rpz]

i didnt think TDTH was christian at all. "The big-bang never blew me away. Adam and Eve never made the grade".

i thought he only made his mind up recently with regards to his faith...

I think if you look closely at the material Ed has produced (with or without LIVE) over the last 5-7 years, you will notice that it has steadily wavered away from the stuff that we have grown accustomed to and loved about him. I still found what Ed had to say interesting right up until around 2004/5, till before SFBM came out.

I'm not sure whether the material on that album swayed my belief that he was a man who was calculated and knew exactly what he was talking about, to someone who contradicted himself and just started sounding lame.

If you read the stuff he had up on Ken Wilber's jounal 'Integral Naked' at the time 2003-2005 or so, Ed came across as a very intelligent, careful and thoughtful kind of guy. He seemed very interesting, and genuinely passionate and interested in what he was doing artistically and musically, and you couldn't help be in awe if not inspired by the man and what he was about.

His lyrics and his general persona were consistent with the man we saw on stage, and when you listened to the material and read the interviews and the journals etc, he seemed so in tune (if you pardon the pun).

However, ever since SFBM and the way Ed has put himself about is really sad, as someone here has already stated. I feel that the fans 'collective yawn' CT spoke about was not exaggerated by any means - indeed many called a LIVE split 4 - 5 years ago. Many of us put it down to a few bad years, after so many great years, and that LIVE would be back sooner rather than later.

Somehow though, when CT revealed his findings in that email, and once we all digested what he had to say, we somehow knew it was coming, and that it was more believable than not, that Ed was just as big a reason for the 'decline' (I know Nick will go mental about me calling it that) as anyone. It seemed the man who was once so interesting and so out there in terms of dynamic lyrics and always had the right words didn't have it anymore.

Alive is just a continuation of that change in behavior. I am just as guilty of dissing that album as anyone else. Yes, I do prefer the pure rock sound of TGF over Ed's new pop sound. I also don't have a problem with people who prefer Ed's sound over TGF's - but what I do have a problem with, is when people talk about Alive like it is the best work that Ed has done and these mediocre musicians he has surrounded himself with are the best that he can do. Alive is far off the standard off any LIVE album - the good ones AND the poor ones. The rest of us know what he is capable of.

I can't understand how a fanofLIVE can't see that.

[FishOutaWater]

I think if you look closely at the material Ed has produced (with or without LIVE) over the last 5-7 years, you will notice that it has steadily wavered away from the stuff that we have grown accustomed to and loved about him. I still found what Ed had to say interesting right up until around 2004/5, till before SFBM came out.

I'm not sure whether the material on that album swayed my belief that he was a man who was calculated and knew exactly what he was talking about, to someone who contradicted himself and just started sounding lame.

If you read the stuff he had up on Ken Wilber's jounal 'Integral Naked' at the time 2003-2005 or so, Ed came across as a very intelligent, careful and thoughtful kind of guy. He seemed very interesting, and genuinely passionate and interested in what he was doing artistically and musically, and you couldn't help be in awe if not inspired by the man and what he was about.

His lyrics and his general persona were consistent with the man we saw on stage, and when you listened to the material and read the interviews and the journals etc, he seemed so in tune (if you pardon the pun).

However, ever since SFBM and the way Ed has put himself about is really sad, as someone here has already stated. I feel that the fans 'collective yawn' CT spoke about was not exaggerated by any means - indeed many called a LIVE split 4 - 5 years ago. Many of us put it down to a few bad years, after so many great years, and that LIVE would be back sooner rather than later.

Somehow though, when CT revealed his findings in that email, and once we all digested what he had to say, we somehow knew it was coming, and that it was more believable than not, that Ed was just as big a reason for the 'decline' (I know Nick will go mental about me calling it that) as anyone. It seemed the man who was once so interesting and so out there in terms of dynamic lyrics and always had the right words didn't have it anymore.

Alive is just a continuation of that change in behavior. I am just as guilty of dissing that album as anyone else. Yes, I do prefer the pure rock sound of TGF over Ed's new pop sound. I also don't have a problem with people who prefer Ed's sound over TGF's - but what I do have a problem with, is when people talk about Alive like it is the best work that Ed has done and these mediocre musicians he has surrounded himself with are the best that he can do. Alive is far off the standard off any LIVE album - the good ones AND the poor ones. The rest of us know what he is capable of.

I can't understand how a fanofLIVE can't see that.

Wow. Excellent post.