Search - Edward Rogers :: You Haven't Been Where I've Been

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J. J Spina | New York, NY USA | 04/16/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Although I can honestly not compare it to anything, this new CD from Ed Rogers is, in fact, EVERYTHING truly devoted fans of pop music AND pop culture should love and adore when it comes to music-a-fying the song and singer scene countdowned from the moment Britain decided to recolonize America's hit brigade back in the early 60s.

But...this is not retrospective music. Rogers encompasses every shread of his lifelong passion for rock and role and re-assesses that continually growing cultural phonetic in a blinding wave of songwriting, singing and performance talent that easily compares with the best of the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and now.

That means...It all floors me. There's not a duff tune here. The title tell you THAT. They are all "I wish I'd thought of that" phrases, quite nearly featurettes in their ability to tempt and then deliver on first listening.

But the critical kick of legendary starts with listen #2:

You already remember the song.

In "Commodore Hotel" you've been there even if you've never been there. With "I Hear This Place is Haunted" you ride the vocal and the intense drum run as if you've lived on that edge WITH Rogers for your whole frantic life.

That shocking familiarity cascades with every song. You want to be the singer. You want to live the song. Correction...You did live that song and you are singing it. You're also singing it because Rogers has one of those blank page vocal nuainces easily able to invite doses of listener harmony. His accent is, at first, slightly off-putting until you realize you want to sound like that and you want HIM to sound exactly like that. It's friendly. It's weary. It's wounded. It's wonderful. Its wickedly insiderish yet chummy. And it never stops being all those things. This is an apex not scaled since romantic poets started hanging out, dandified yet total humming in their lust for life and words that capture that life.

So where is this usually elusive crest of pop perfection?

Go here to know but don't compare...only comprehend.

It's:



... the first time you ever heard Ray Davies sing "Nothing In This World Stop Me Worrying Bout That Girl" and realized there was more to The Kinks than power chords.



...the first notes of The Air That I Breathe washing over Allen Clark's penetrating voice in a thrill of exquisite commitment and longing. Happy Hollie-Day.



...Alan Price. Oh Ed...you Lucky Man.



...Dandy and Fancy. The same...but different



And I guess it truly is...the day I bought my first Byrds album (Turn Turn Turn) and realized rock is a religion and I could turn to that spirit of constant rebirth and renewal just by listening to a CD as ethereal and real as Ed Rogers' You Haven't Been Where I've Been.











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