As a singer, though, this musician's musician seems most influenced by Ziggy Stardust's creator. Stewart's chalky baritone and sly, sometimes ominous delivery evoke David Bowie so strongly at points that it's almost uncanny. And the dreamy
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textures and often trippy lyrics on
Greetings betray a nostalgia for the era in which Bowie first breathed life into his ill-fated leper messiah.
Not that any of the material on Greetings sounds dated or derivative. As Prince, Karl Wallinger and Stewart himself have already proved, there are artists who can employ retrophilia in the service of invention. Stewart has always had a flair for neopsychedelic arrangements that feel contemporary and fresh; on Greetings his instincts are supported by musicians – most notably bassist Bootsy Collins and keyboardist Bernie Worrell – who offer history, virtuosity and friskiness.
The musical results vary from the edgy "You Talk a Lot," with its dramatic flourishes of piano and organ, to "Jealousy," a slice of brisk funk on which Collins, a one-man rhythm team, supplements his bass wizardry with razor-sharp percussion. Stewart's guitar work, meanwhile, easily proves him worthy of such company, whether he's blasting sonic missiles through the hip-hop-laced "Damien Save Me" or creating the soulful atmosphere that suffuses the title track.
"Greetings From the Gutter" gets added juice, as do many of the songs on this album, from a chorus of backing vocalists (Deee-Lite's Lady Miss Kier prominent among them) who provide an animated foil to the more understated Stewart. On "Heart of Stone," while Stewart wryly muses about having an affair with a disco diva, the backup singers break into ebullient ooh-oohs straight out of Bowie's "Young Americans."
Ten tracks later, though, on "Oh No, Not You Again," the chorus echoes Stewart's agitation as he assails a lover, a woman who has fallen prey to "checkbook religion and Diet Coke friends." The song then culminates in a hilarious spoken argument between a whiny Carly Simon and yuppie sax god David Sanborn, fittingly cast as an annoying modern couple struggling to communicate with each other. Compared with such latter-day monsters of alienation, Ziggy Stardust would probably seem like a pretty down-to-earth guy. (RS 704)
ELYSA GARDNER
