Swedish vocals
International relevance: *
I
really don't know what to do with this album. It's actually not very strange, but I pick up some weird vibe in it I can't quite identify. I don't know if I'm just creeped out by the unnerving
album cover where Wintzell seems a little bit to friendly with a
piglet on the front and where he appears to seduce a cow on the back.
If this is supposed to allude to Beach Boys' ”Pet Sounds” cover,
this has a much darker and unpleasant aura. Especially for coming
from someone who in his time was considered a sex symbol. (Decades
later, in the 90's, he was also a host for a TV show called ”Tutti
Frutti” styled after Italian entertainment shows with prominent
display of female breasts. The show inspired to a new Swedish
expression translating to ”tit television”.)
There are
many bizarre turns in Wintzell's career which extends beyond the
purely musical, but he later became an opera singer and he was also
in the Swedish stage version of musical "Hair" along with Baby Grandmothers, Mecki Bodemark (Mecki Mark Men), Hawkey Franzén and
Bill Öhrström (Fläsket Brinner, Ramlösa Kvällar, Tillsammans and
others). ”Debut” is just that, his solo debut album. It's short on
information who plays on it. The thorough arrangements are credited
to John ”Rabbit” Bundrick, Björn J:son Lindh, and Sven-Olof
Walldoff, and I suspect that it's Walldoff's orchestra and backing singers
performing. Walldoff's gang was an oft-used lot in those days when a
lavish and proficient backing was needed, as in Eurovision Song
Contest in Brighton 1974 when ABBA won. A lot points in his direction
as ”Debut” is heavily orchestrated.
The songs are all Swedish covers of Elton John, Leonard Cohen and Lennon/McCartney, three of them translated by Hawkey Franzén. They're all very well executed, but there's something in Wintzell's voice that suggests something else is going on here, a weird strain of something unknown that worries me. Like I said, I can't put my finger on what exactly it is but it runs through the entire album. Or maybe it's just me. Or the album cover. Who knows?
There is however one track that really stands out. ”The Fool On The Hill” is one of McCartney's dullest songs in the Beatles catalogue, but Wintzell and whoever accompanies him brings something entirely new out of it. Have you ever wondered what happens after a song fades out? Does the song just end cold, or do the musicians go on for several more minutes, freaking out completely as they know nobody will hear it anyway since the track will fade early on the record? Well, ”När solen går ner” may be the answer to that. The track could end at around four minutes but goes on for another two as the whole song jumps in at the deep end and becomes crazed-out psychedelic. There's nothing on the album with its slightly high-brow presentation of contemporary singer/songwriter material to prepare you for this final blow-out. You may not like the rest, but that track alone is certainly worth hearing!
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