Audio Files

By GINA VIVINETTO and GERRY DOYLE

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 8, 2000

NICK DRAKE REISSUES

British folk singer Nick Drake is the Vincent Van Gogh of pop music. In the early 1970s he created beautifully uncommercial music and died in obscurity, and now, because of a Volkswagen ad featuring his gorgeous Pink Moon, he's suddenly the toast of the town. Ah, life's ironies.

Drake's tender, heartfelt music really doesn't fit in with pop's current scene, yet folks of all ages are responding to his intricate guitar playing and soothing, sad songs, which is why Hannibal records has seen fit to reissue Drake's three masterpieces. The public dismissed them 25 years ago, which sent the already melancholy singer with the gentle, hushed voice, into more of a funk, culminating with Drake's death at 26 from a drug overdose.

But now, his music is selling, speaking to a huge audience, which must make Drake, who gave only one or two concerts in his lifetime, wherever he may be, muse.

-- GINA VIVINETTO , Times pop music critic

NICK DRAKE, FIVE LEAVES LEFT (HANNIBAL) Drake's debut, Five Leaves Left was recorded when he was 20. With baroque string arrangements backing him, Drake shows at a tender age he was already capable of crafting masterpieces. Bass and cello are prominent on tracks such as Cello Song, which is perfect.

How this kid could have been so wise at such a tender age, and able to convey his insights so sensitively, is baffling. Frustrating, too, when you think of how much more he had in him. Grade: A.

-- G.V.

NICK DRAKE, BRYTER LAYTER (HANNIBAL) Delicate, powerful, utterly unique, Bryter Layter's haunting acoustic guitar is meshed with symphonic strings that are less desolate this go-round. Drake's lyrics become denser, more complex, but no less melancholy.

Arrangements are almost mockingly bright. At the Chime of the City Clock with alto sax, grooves with upbeat, jazzy tones. The piano on One of These Things First is heartbreakingly hopeful; is it teasing you?

Fly features Velvet Undergrounder John Cale on viola and harpsichord. Northern Sky sums it all up: "I've never felt magic crazy as this."

Ah, Bryter Layter, you're lovely, sad and so precise. Grade A.

-- G.V.

NICK DRAKE, PINK MOON (HANNIBAL) A perfect album, Pink Moon is simple, spare and yet unbelievably generous. Drake says so much with these slightest of lyrics.

The title track is the most beautiful song ever written. If Pink Moon doesn't get you to catch your breath in awe, then I don't want to know you.

The album, Drake's final and most dark, was recorded in two days with just a guitar, most tracks done in one take. Gone are the strings and sax. "No frill this time," Drake told his engineer.

Drake used his nimble finger work -- and he was a wonderful guitarist -- and complex chord progressions to convey a swollen sadness as well as his recurring hope against hope.

Six strings, one voice, 28 minutes. Amazing. Grade A+.

-- G.V.

MACK 10, THE PAPER ROUTE (PRIORITY) Gangsta rap has a tendency to all sound the same. There are only so many ways to describe automatic weapons, prostitutes and Hennessy.

Which makes the freshness of Mack 10's new album, The Paper Route, as surprising as a 4 a.m. drive-by.

To be sure, it contains as much ain't-nobody-better-than-me lyrics as the next album. But he turns some nifty phrases. And on a few tracks, Mr. 10 is surprisingly thoughtful. The album's fifth track, I'm Dope, would seem on its face to be another ode to West Coast gangbanging. But the lyrics tell a different story. Make you have withdrawals/I'm a fix y'all/put me in a spoon and heat me/if I tell you my name you think dogs would eat me/we can go from 0-60/I'll show you how to make 200 from 50. . . you can run a train on the tracks that I leave. Personification of popular street drugs? That's not something you usually see wandering the ego-controlled, bullet-riddled rap landscape.

And the production shines like new rims on a '64 Impala. In fact, this album is made to be listened to in a car. The bass rattles the rearview mirror. The lyrics make you want to slouch down in the seat and sneer at cops. He doesn't use too many samples, and when he does, they aren't distracting. None of the tracks really are danceable. . . but then, it's hard to dance and drive at the same time.

That's not to say that the album is perfect. Several tracks aren't great to listen to, even on a superficial level. There are the requisite shout-outs. People are killed, ridiculed and gotten high. And he devotes an entire track, Pimp or Die, to describing different ways to, um, make love to a woman.

But who cares about that? Mack 10 keeps the Alpine bumpin'.

Mack 10 never tries to be anything he's not. It's gangsta rap, and at times, it wallows in the genre's cliches. But the gut-shaking bass makes it fun to listen to anyway. And he's got undeniable talent. When he unleashes it, Paper Route delivers. GRADE: B.

- GERRY DOYLE, Times staff writer

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