4.2.11

Kevin Rowland - My Beauty (1999)


Kevin Rowland's second solo Album followed an 11 year hiatus during which he experienced drug problems.

1. Greatest Love of All
2. Rag Doll
3. Concrete and Clay
4. Daydream Believer
5. This Guy's in Love with You
6. The Long and Winding Road
7. It's Getting Better
8. I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top
9. Labelled With Love (I'll Stay With My Dreams)
10. Reflections of My Life
11. You'll Never Walk Alone

Rowland - as singer and songwriter with Dexys Midnight Runners - gave us some of the great pop moments. From the bolshy vision of Searching for the Young Soul Rebels through the celtic-gumbo of Too-Rye-Ay and '85's neglected masterpiece, Don't Stand Me Down, his is a towering contribution to British music, both visually and musically.
Paul Moody Uncut, March 2007

I said to Alan McGee ... I'd really like to do this record of cover versions of songs that I really like that mean a lot to me at this time. And he said "Yeah, great idea" so we did that and that took I think two years and it came out. And then three months later Creation went down and that was the end of that one. Good record...
 Kevin Rowland, 2010. Full interview here.

It's GENIUS! Rowland is a genius! I've always said I liked that record. Look, the record should have been a million-seller. It's just people's problem with a guy in stockings on the cover that stopped them buying it. But if you just put it on your iPod it's a work of genius.
 Alan McGee, The Guardian, 21. 09.10

                                                                 



A 12th number, a reworking of Thunder Road, was excluded from the album following objections from Bruce Springsteen- thanks to Bubba for providing a link to this 'missing' track- see comments.

8 comments:

  1. This is excellent album, thanks for keeping it "in the limelight", some 12 years later.
    The promo version had 12 tracks, but Bruce Springsteen forced poor Kevin to remove "Thunder Road" from "My Beauty". If interested I can share the song via RapidShare or something.

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  2. Thanks Bubba- If you upload that missing track feel free to post a link on here.

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  3. Posted the fantastic track here:
    http://www.sendspace.com/file/zq97yq

    Enjoy!!

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  4. Thanks for this, I'll give it a go.
    The cover always put me off for some reason. I heard only 35 copies were sold in the UK when it was released... is there any truth to that? If so chances are it was probably the cover that sealed this albums fate.
    But anyway I'll finally give it a chance now hey?
    Thanks again!!

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  5. @Bazzil- I think stories about the album's poor commercial performance tend to be exaggerated, but it wasn't a roaring success.
    @Bubba- thank you! I have amended the post to point readers in the direction of your link.

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  6. Link dead... been looking for this album for a while too...

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  7. Ok Anonymous- leave it with me and check back soon

    ReplyDelete

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