Never one to set the charts on fire or be a music revolutionary,
Chris Rea nonetheless has long established himself as being a
gritty and grainy solo artist who doesn`t stick to convention
and who has dabbled in many diffrent forms of music, notably
blues and jazz in more recent years. Rea`s sound has always
been spacey and non-confrontational, his deep and powerfully
distinctive voice has elevated many standard mediocre pop songs
to much greater heights. He became known in the 80`s with such
pop songs with a slightly progressive bent such as `Lets Dance`,
`On The Beach` and `I Can Hear Your Heartbeat`, probaly his
greatest rock song, if you disregard his classic STONEY ROAD
blues orientated double album at the beginning of the 2000`s,
is the somewhat repetitive but classically styled `You Can Go
Your Own Way`, a song from the 90`s that was just a tack-on
to a greatest hits compilation. In 1992, Rea released what would
probaly be regarded as his best overall album, the eccentrically
titled `Gods Great Banana Skin`, the title track is a witty and
intelligent, biting reflection of how we should always remember
that the man upstairs will have a banana skin waiting for us to
slip on if we keep mucking up. The opening 9-minute long opus,
`Nothing To Fear`, features a mesmerizing and long winded slide
guitar solo from Rea which is heavily influenced in build up and
structure to something you`d expect from Mark Knopfler in Dire
Straits. `Miles Is A Cigarette` is somewhat incongruous lyrically
but the final verse of the song features one of Rea`s most compel-
ling vocal performances, stereophonic and richly textured like no
other. The album is brimming with philosophical sarcasm, i`m sure
with a female or two in mind on Rea`s part. `I Ain`t The Fool` is
the more aggressive in comparison to the blase `There She Goes`,
the latter more of an ultimatum to the mystery woman who inspired
the lyric, the latter more of a parody after she has gotten up and
done a bolt on him and he has given up altogether. `Too Much Pride`
is another stinging observation of love gone wrong and a reflection
on somebody who wouldn`t compromise to make a relationship func-
tion properly. The most hard rock edged songs in the set is the aptly
titled `Boom Boom` & the admissionary `Black Dog`, no guessing it`s
metaphorically referring to Rea`s state of mind at the time and
not a big black doberman or labrador like the title suggests. I have
left the 2 best songs in my opinion to last, for my liking the slow
starting but eventually rollicking jamfest `90`s Blues` and the
classically styled smooth guitar gem `Soft Top, Hard Shoulder`
are a tie for gold here. Rea outgrew the fickleness of his own
80`s output and all the other disposable pop which had taken
over the airwaves at that time to produce a quite brilliant
epic album, rock heavy in places but in true Chris Rea style
spaced out and eclectic enough to make his vocals the stand-
out attraction. If i had to name a Rea album you had to own
then to me this is the one - a bit of pop, a bit of rock and
a bit of blues,as well as one of the most underated singers
at the top of his game. Rea decided to not sell himself out.
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