Monday, December 16, 2013

Morningstar S/T Columbia 1978

Morningstar S/T Columbia 1978 CAT # JC35316

This is the debut album from Morningstar.  I was hoping after the dreadful experience of their second album for Columbia, this would be better.

Good news, it's better.  Bad news, it's still cheeseball, pomp-rock.  You could tell, the second album was based on the commercial failure of this LP.  This album appears to be a bit truer to the band.  You can actually feel the energy and nothing sounds forced.  The band attempts to rock and at times it sounds kind of Kiss-esque, 70's metal.  Most of the time, however, it sounds similar to other studio rockers of the time. The album is also sprinkled with a bunch of synth driven mid-tempo, sappy, chick tunes.  I'm sure they got laid a lot at bars and such, but they probably would have been a more successful band had they concentrated on straight ahead rock n' roll.

Worst of it, the lyrics these guys (or guy) wrote are awful.  I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there that borders on bad teenage poetry, but this does it the whole way through.  Half this shit doesn't even make sense.  Here's the chorus from the tune, Sweet Georgia Peach, "Like a Sweet Georgia Peach, I got a line on you but my ten foot pole won't reach."  Really?  This is not clever.  I mean, I get it, the cliche, "I wouldn't touch that with a ten foot pole," but it doesn't make it clever to say you can't touch something with something you'd never touch it with in the first place.  It's like that the whole way through, a bunch of lines that just leave you scratching your head trying to figure out if they were attempting to be clever or if they were really that stuck for things to write about.

Props, though.  They mention KC numerous times throughout the LP credits.  The booking company is listed in Shawnee Mission, KS.  They thanked local radio stations.  And, they just gave a straight shout out to Kansas City in the thank you's on the liner.

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