Review Summary: Digital's first, worst recording.
It’s hard to define
Ry Cooder’s sound. Every album yields a new approach to his myriad of fretted string instruments. His earlier scores that symbolise his intrigue for the Hawaiian Island sound, pokes out of the palms here and there, but mainly this release,
Bop Till You Drop is a rhythm and blues album with a collection hit scores from known and unknown artists from the 1950’s to the 1960’s. Having some significance as the first ever major-label digitally recorded popular album, Bop isn’t as great as it could have been otherwise. It seems part of the choice for the digital approach was solely released to demonstrate the technological advance of digital recording techniques. The liner notes mention the recording method in a fashionable statement –
“[…]rather then modelling the sound into magnetism in the mode of conventional analog machines, samples sound at the rate of 50,000 times a second and record its characteristics numerically[…] without noise and harmonic distortion.” Trying to make it sound wonderful means you lead into the recording with high expectations for sonic quality.
Spanning entire studio group of no less then 24 members, Cooder and gang present a mix of varied tracks to the listener in the form of a cooler edge and bite to the sound; a typical Cooder sound, but with a late seventies soul approach, poppy bass, Cooder on guitar, and horde of talented session musicians taking up varying roles. However, while the intentions of the album are recognisable, the recording technique chips away at the endowed performances with its thin and trebly quality, no thanks to the primitive digital technology, which was still feeling massive teething problems for both listeners and producers at the time. Those high expectations that were, diminish fairly quickly after the first few tracks. While one should never support the entire perception of a release upon its recording style, here it just doesn’t feel as eventful and entertaining as it should. After all these songs are meant to keep you bopping until you drop from heat exhaustion, but don’t due to the lack of rhythmic emphasis.
Still though, don’t forget that if you enjoy good guitar work, then any Cooder album will do. Naturally there are his standouts i.e.
Paradise and Lunch,
Into the Purple Valley – but is this one of them? No, not entirely. It has its moments, such as the soulful
Elvis classic
“Little Sister” and the only Cooder composition
“Down In Hollywood”, that takes some time to get started, but once going keeps up a good deal of inertia. Then there are the tracks that both showcase the good collaboration between the groups of musicians, and guest stars such as
Chaka Khan on
“Don’t Mess Up a Good Thing”, and also, Cooder’s close friend,
Bobby King as a backing vocalist on
“I Can’t Win” and
“Trouble, You Can’t Fool Me”, all of which are songs principle to the enjoyment of the album, but left for last, so to speak.
The rest however, particularly the earlier handful, is hit and miss. Good tight performances, destabilized by the recording quality, as well as a collection of lesser known oldies hits make Bop one of Cooder’s less distinguished releases amongst his predominantly good repertoire. As one of the finalising albums of the rock that was the 1970’s, it almost pre-empts synthetic feeling of the colourful bubble that was the 1980’s in an interesting way that will leave you wondering what his following release in the new decade will capitulate, considering the varied musical style heard here.
