Ken Nordine - Colors

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Music reviews of Colors

Music Review: It's a SPOKEN WORD album about COLORS by THAT VOICE GUY!
Rating: 4 Stars

This is the
point--there is absolutely no logical path that leads to
"Colors." I mean, it's just out there... Fill in the
blank--"If you like ______, then you'll positively aDORE Ken
Nordine!" You can't! You just can't do it! I put the album in
the Jazz portion of my collection, but to briefly personify, I don't
know if good old Ken is getting on that well with Miles and Mingus. I
don't think Coltraine and Parker let him sit in very often. Even Dave
Brubeck is defensively indifferent... Maybe they're just jealous.

They could learn a lession by listening to the album. Essentially a
whimsical morality play in which one-dimensional Vices and Virtues
bang each other over the head, "Colors" would be a great
album to play for an emotionally developing child. Painting (if I
may) a resplendent and busily bustling picture of such sins as
racisism, envy, vanity, and sloth, "Colors" can at times be
a little heavy-handed as it oversimplifys. But within the social
commentary lies a celebration of color, of life; a wacky celebration
of wackiness.

Like this review, "Colors" sometimes
over-reaches. There is a consistency in theme (obviously--all the
songs are about colors), but the approach varies from song to song.
It's kind of like Disney--you know, Mickey keeps Pluto, a dog, as his
pet. Goofy, himself a dog, must be extremely open minded to be able
to be friends with someone who has disrespectfully reduced his blood
brother to the status of lowly, doghouse dwelling pet, and how come
one is able to speak and understand English and not the other, etc...
Know what I mean? Nordine's playful "Maroon" aims to rhyme
words with "maroon," whereas "Black" and
"White" are more conceptual and many songs personify colors
and assign them character traits. These transgressions are easily
forgivable due to the merit of the album as a whole, and there are
some KILLER lines (I paraphrase the following) "Only colors not
worth seeing/Is the grey way Beige likes things being."
Dude...

I've owned this album for over a year and I STILL haven't
really gotten over what initally drew me to it. It's simple really:
"Colors" is a SPOKEN WORD album about COLORS as performed by
THAT VOICE GUY!

That's all I really needed to say. It's wacky.
It's a great album to own. The inlay contains instructions for a game
you can play by listening to the album. You can sneak it into your CD
player when company is over and wait for people to go "What the
%#!@ is this?!?!" It's obscure, it's funny, it's off-beat, it
doesn't sound like anything else, it doesn't require assembly or
batteries, the MUSIC is excellent, the concept doesn't get old, it's
well written and well performed, goes great with milk, and MATCHES
anything you wear. If you're still reading this review, you probably
own the album anyway, so do the rest of the mental work yourself...
Rock on, Ken Nordine...

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