ejjiii's Full Review: On the Rocks Part 1: Rock 'N' Roll Hits Distilled ...
I have to admit it. I originally bought this CD as a goof. Part of the Capitol Records “Ultra-Lounge” series, On The Rocks part one (distilled for easy listening) just looked too "retro" to pass up at my local Tower Records. The clean cut guy on the cover, with his Nehru jacket, oversized medallion, and Dickensian - Roger McGuinn glasses, holding the obligatory cocktail glass with the word “groovy” printed on it. It was all too much. I had to have this CD.
The first time I heard the CD, I thought that it wasn’t too bad. The second time, I found myself pouring martini. The third time I was hooked. Where are my love beads???
Where else are you going to find Mel Torme singing Donovan’s Sunshine Superman? Or Julie London’s take on Bob Dylan’s Quinn the Eskimo? Mariano Moreno’s cover of Procol Harum’s A Whiter Shade of Pale sounds like it would at a 17th Century English ball, complete with faux harpsichord. And no Lounge album would be complete without a tune from Martin Denny, one of the founding fathers of the genre. He chips in with a sitar-backed version of Incense and Peppermint merged with a piano-lounge sendup of A Beautiful Morning, complete with vibes.
There is something so wrong about The Letterman sing the Doors medley Hello, I Love You / Touch Me. So wrong, but oh, so right. This CD is all about attitude. You have to let the lounge feeling wash over you.
My favorite (and it’s a tough call, there are so many lounge and roll classics that you may want to find your favorite chick and “shag, baby” to the whole shooting match!) is John Andrew Tartaglia’s Beatles medley A Day In The Life / I am the Walrus. This bad boy borders on sacrilege.
This CD is part of the very popular “Ultra-Lounge” series, where Capitol Records has successfully mined their archives and dug up CD after CD of buried treasures. This particular CD is remakes of rock classics in lounge style, all recorded during the 1960’s. Each CD in the series has a different theme. I own four. They are all pretty cool, in a geeky “I hope no one finds out I own this CD” kind of way.
Not every song is gem, but most have enough attitude to pull up the truly horrific. Stu Phillips' Tired of Waiting For You is paced some where between Vanilla Fudge and a funeral dirge. The is a difference between Lounge, and just lounging.
This CD reminds me of my still-young parents, still trying to be cool despite their advancing years, during the paisley-swirled, "these times they are achangin’" late sixties. When Dean Martin was the coolest old guy on TV. When Wayne Newton was singing Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes) like he does on this CD - with reckless abandon, and a Vegas-tinged swagger.
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