The Rascals: The Island of Real : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

The first thing to remember is that all this simpering nonsense started with "Groovin'." That wonderful song, with its picture of a long, easy, ecstatic afternoon set the pattern for a series of songs–"I'm So Happy Now," "A Beautiful Morning," etc., etc.–each more doggedly committed to positivism and goodvibes than the last, until it had to turn from something relaxing, mind-freeing, like 10 mg. of Valium, to something insipid enough to be irritating. And since it coincided with the development of Rock As Art Form, a good deal of pretension was picked up along the way as well, from Once Upon a Dream's liner inscriptions to Peaceful World, which was the absolute nadir of Pollyannaish pap, to this one, which contains a good deal of same and even reveals, if one wanted to be really petty, that Felix Cavaliere is still wearing a Nehru jacket. Well, it is a "Shanti Production."

The second thing to remember is that the Rascals have never really made good albums. Good songs they've had aplenty, but every single album they've made has been at least spotty and at most fair argument for only buying their Greatest Hits set. There were occasions where the formula was broken a bit–the whole first side of the Groovin' album is still good listening after five years–but they were compensated for by albums almost wholly mediocre (like Once Upon a Dream) and the excess of Freedom Suite. By the time they'd gotten to Peaceful World and the group had been whittled down to Felix Cavaliere and Dino Danelli and a raft of session men, the process of degeneration seemed complete. Not even Alice Coltrane and seemingly every fine jazz session player in New York could save that bland tissue of a double-record set.

All that said, it must be reported that Island of Real is the first Rascals album without a single bad, offensive, sloppy, overlong or obviously contrived cut. Despite the aforementioned tendency toward the cloying, it flows well, is beautifully arranged and produced, and sounds nice, and is easy to listen to all the way through. So maybe it's the best Rascals album?

No. As pretty as this record sounds, as easy as it is to slip on the turntable, it contains not a single cut with the fire of "I Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" or "Come On Up," the classic mellowness of "Groovin'," or the super-buoyance of "A Girl Like You." The Rascals gave up on trying to make music in the first category long ago, though they try repeatedly to deliver the goods in the latter two. And they make it, in a way. It's just that what they make now, even shorn of the studio slush of Peaceful World, is mostly muzak. Concept muzak at that.

Try "Hummin' Song" ("I just have to say/Everything's OK"). Or the title track, which is built on a Latin progression which is quite similar to those in several other songs on the album and is not far at all from either Sergio Mendez or some of Pharoah Sanders' more muzaky things, although their flute solo doesn't begin to approach the heaviness of, say, Herbie Mann. And the lyrics all over this album are selling the most cloying panaceas: "I've been around," sings Cavaliere, "and I've paid my dues/And I'm sick and tired of singin' the blues ..." The answer is to "Get back ... to the island," where presumably the happy, innocent natives spend all their time singing songs like "Lucky Day."

Trendiness creeps in, too: Sly in "Jungle Walk" and "Be On the Real Side," which is pleasant enough that you can overlook how preachy it is. And Molly Holt's vocal on "Echoes" sounds so much like Dionne Warwicke that I would defy the subject of a blindfold test to tell the difference, especially since the melody and lyrics out-Bach-arach/David the men themselves: "Your smile when you first come home/And my arms around you/You laugh when you turn around/And the dog is on you."

A hearthside album, indeed. I could go on, mention the many fine solos on horns, keyboards, guitar and moog (arp?), qualify the criticisms by saying once again how sweet it entirely is, even recommend it unreservedly for the listener in the market for something heavier than Arthur Lyman yet not quite so fierce or even gross as the Rascals of old could be. It's just that the Rascals lost something vital when they traded in their capacity for rage for stuff like "Brother Tree/Tell me what have you seen Sister Wind/Tell me where have you been ... All they told me/All they said was one word/Love."

Unfortunately for the New Rascals, that's not all you need.