Thing You Hit With a Stick (The Acoustic Adrian Belew Vol.2: Belewprints - Adrian Belew)

Name: Frankingsteins

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Product:	The Acoustic Adrian Belew Vol.2: Belewprints - Adrian Belew
Date:	22/03/08 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Better material than the previous acoustic collection, and more variety.

Disadvantages: Not really an acoustic album, and suffers from a weird dichotomy.

The first 'Acoustic Adrian Belew' release was a huge disappointment mainly for being so boring, but it's obvious that the musician's return to an experimental agenda with the previous year's 'Op Zop Too Wah' has impacted on this second "acoustic" collection, in which Belew digs more self-assessed "classics" from his archive and gives them the unplugged treatment. Except that his acoustic guitar is plugged in, supplemented by electric guitar on occasion (as in 'Never Enough'), as well as a whole load of other instruments including piano, percussion and a string section, to the point that this might as well be considered an album of alternative versions rather than bare-bones acoustic renditions. It's slightly better for it.

The main problem here is the clashing of styles, as Belew tries to arrange simplistic, light pop-rock songs alongside pointless experimental interludes in the form of 'Things You Hit With a Stick,' 'Return of the Chicken' and finale 'Nude Wrestling With a Christmas Tree.' These frivolous songs were fun on the previous studio release, but here just seem out of place and immature. Perhaps even weirder is the on-off presence of other instruments, as Belew tackles a few songs in the same dull style as the last acoustic album, while others overload on piano and drums, with seemingly no pattern to which songs end up in which style. 'Men in Helicopters' once again starts things off with a Greenpeace anthem criticising man's short-sightedness, and this is rendered palatable and even enjoyable thanks to the dominant string section, but these extra musicians vanish completely for the remainder, leaving 'Big Blue Sun' sounding diluted without their input, which was one of the only reasons it was considered a good song in its original form.

This album is still entrenched in the camp of Belew's commercial rock era, with the minor problem that parts of it are so unappealing to either of his fan bases that it's likely no one ever bought it at all. There are some good songs here, especially '1967' and 'Cage' which actually make use of the acoustic style rather than suffer for it, but this is ultimately one of many Adrian Belew albums that you'd be better off without.

1. Men in Helicopters
2. Cage
3. I Remember How to Forget
4. Young Lions
5. Never Enough
6. Things You Hit With a Stick
7. Everything
8. Big Blue Sun
9. Bad Days
10. One of Those Days
11. Return of the Chicken
12. Dinosaur
13. 1967
14. Free as a Bird (Live)
15. Nude Wrestling With a Christmas Tree

Summary: Adrian Belew's eleventh album (1998).