John R. Taylor's Greatest Hit

 

For much of their last two decades at the forefront of the song-poem world, Tin Pan Alley seems to go through a variety of wispy, wimpy-voiced vocalists interspersed with backing musicians who didn't seem to know what they were doing.

 

So it was a pleasure, and yet also frustrating to find this outlier, a record performed by the otherwise completely unknown John R. Taylor. Aside from the resolutely awful vinyl pressing, I genuinely like this record - the band is cooking, especially a hyperactive drummer and very involved lead guitarist. And John R. Taylor is a bit over-the-top, but not in a Bob Storm way - just an intense, all-in performance of a lyric which benefits from such a reading.

 

While it's a far cry from great, I actually believe this singer singing these words (well, aside from the disconnect between the very adult singer singing about "another boy". I truly wish he'd recorded more material for Tin Pan Alley, and hope he's not the same John Taylor who went on to help form Duran Duran.

 

Download: John R. Taylor - My World

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The flip side is "When the Day Kissed the Night", and it shows to me that even a singer of this style who sounds good singing forceful, upbeat material will start resembling the unctuousness of a Bob Storm when handed ballad material, although in Taylor's case, he just sounds a little pretentious, rather than ridiculous. I don't find any aspect of this record appealing.

 

Download: John R. Taylor - When the Day Kissed the Night

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