the cover art is not very promising. weird way to spell, also: is "Another cup", methink.
The ocean inside the cup of tea might be a reference to the ocean in Malibu where he was about to die, back in 1976, when he asked God for help. God helped him, and... you know the rest of the story.
Kinda weird that the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens and renamed Yusuf Islam from about 25 years now decided to not print on the front cover of his new album his last name, "Islam". Maybe a suggestion from the marketing dept. at Universal. These are those days you know...
Two songs were available from the NPR website yesterday to download, but to request from the artist they were removed. Kinda like it happened with Bob Dylan's Modern Times last july. You really wonder who is behind this official Internet websites...
I got the chance to download them, tho: Don't Let me be Misunderstood, the old Animals glory song, is very interesting: only Yusuf voice and a nice orchestra, very slow and very passionate. It seems he choose this song for the lyrics, since he was minsunderstood every time he spoke about his islamic faith (so he says) but also I believe this was a huge hit way back when he started out his career back in mid 60s, so a way to pay tribute to his old days too.
the other is a nice ballad, but I dont like the arrangements: the horns make it sound like a silly carrebbean song or something. The voice is no more the old Cat Stevens voice of course, it lost most of his power but is a nice voice tho.
well, it was 28 years since his last "pop" album. welcome back, Cat,anyway.
3 comments:
That is one of the most shocking covers ever. Awful.
at least it wasnt used by some obscure pop group from the 90s
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