Did you know Robert Palmer was dead? I bet you did, then you forgot, then something reminded you again, then it slipped your mind, then I reminded you just now. For some reason the passing of this musical legend 7 years ago refuses to sink in. And it isn't denial at work here. We don't so long to have him back that we forget he ever passed on. Sadly, we just all found our lives so thoroughly untouched by his passing that there was no need to waste a single finite portion of our brain storing the information. And that's a shameful way to treat the legacy of an 80s pop icon who who was, for a time, the very symbol of Mtv and, more importantly, DIDN'T rape a bunch of little kids.I wrote the above paragraph earlier today and was pretty pleased with it, as I always am whenever I manage to work a rape joke into a music review. Then I decided that to actually listen to some Robert Palmer music would certainly enrich whatever else I had to say about the guy. So I nestled into the easy chair, applied the head phones and set about reliving some fine old times listening to the classic runaway hit album "Riptide" in its entirely.
To anyone else who hits on this same idea I say this, resist the urge. Your lingering fondness, if you have any, is no match for the awful reality of this collection of musical regrets. With this one album Robert Palmer's relative obscurity today was bought at paid for. If this album were an insect it would be the africanized killer bee, since everybody hates it. But even deadly bees make honey, and for Robert Palmer honey goes by the name "Addicted to Love," a song that was actually more awesome than I remembered it.
At first blush "Addicted to Love" seems to be a chunk of 80s studio-burnished synth rock like any other. Sonically it sits well next to anything Duran Duran ever made. It has the same processed gutairs, gated drums, shameless synths and driving sequencer lines. But "Addicted to love" is to "Hungry like the Wolf" what "Back in Black" is to "Pour Some Sugar on Me." The two songs might share a genre, but the former is leaner, nastier, and packs some legitimate soul. If you would imagine the comparison between some kickass africanized killer bee and some lame old stupid honeybee you would begin to see what I'm getting at.
So it's a shame that Robert Palmer didn't realize the power of his one good idea and, like AC DC, make an album entirely of songs that sounded like that one awesome song, then follow that with ten more albums full of the same. Maybe then we would be able to remember that he was dead. You'd forgotten again, hadn't you.
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No, it wouldn't have been a good idea for Robert Palmer to make more albums from the song blueprint of "Addicted To Love". What he DID do was cover a vast array of musical genres because he said he loved to sing anything, as long as he was singing. The bonus was that he did everything well, so we are left with a catalog of his superb music that hasn't been equaled yet in it's breadth and depth of feeling. Mr. Palmer was simply INIMITABLE...and IRRESISTABLE!!!
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