Nilsson

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Given my love of all things '60s pop, it may come to a surprise that I only got into Harry Nilsson last year. Brilliant stuff. Honestly, I think I prefer his baroque pop flavored first three albums over his AOR stuff that brought him his most success. Out of his later work, Son of Schmilsson is probably the weirdest followup to a massive hit album ever and Pussy Cats is a delightful train wreck. I doubt I'll check out his other stuff post '74 or so, it seems too quirky and wildly inconsistent. I think what's on the compilations is enough for me for that era.

I bought the out of print Nilsson Sings Newman at the local record place a couple months back but haven't gotten a chance to listen to it. I love Nilsson and I love Newman and the three or four songs I've heard from it are all great so there's no way I won't love it.


Harry Nilsson - Playboy After Dark

Harry Nilsson - Love Story (Randy Newman)

Any other Nilsson fans here?

 

[Kinetic]

Nilsson Schmilsson is fantastic, and pretty clearly his best album. There's some stuff on Son of Schmilsson that's great ("You're Breaking My Heart," "The Lottery Song," "Remember") but it's way too scattershot to be considered anything more than a curiousity.

There's a lot to recommend from his 60s output ("Everybody's Talkin," "I Guess the Lord Must Be in New York City," and his version of "One" that murders the Three Dog Night cover) but I'm not nuts about any of his albums from that period.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Yeah, honestly, I think he's a more of a singles artist myself. Dude pumped out 1 or 2 albums a year during his career so there's definitely a lot of muck throughout his entire career. Especially the post Nilsson Schmilsson stuff.

 

[Kinetic]

I have a pretty decent "best of" for him. It covers the span of his career, and man does that thing ever taper off after the Son of Schmilsson songs. It's still definitely worth having for the first 2/3rds, though. I'd recommend that anyone interested get a greatest hits album and Nilsson Schmillson and gauge your interest based on those two.

 

[Cackling Co Pilot Kamala]

Yeah, I hate to recommend compilations but for those curious about him, I'd definitely get the two disc compilation Personal Best first. I think it's the one you're talking about Kinetic. It's a pretty good glance at all of the many varied phases of his career. It was compiled by Paul Williams (Muppet looking dude who wrote a lot of songs for Three Dog Night and The Muppets).

I agree though...first disc is awesome, first half of the second disc is also pretty great but the last half of the second desk is spotty. A decent track here and there but not much.

 

[Precious Roy]

Funny, I just started listening to some of his stuff recently too. I'd obviously heard some of it before, and knew of him, but never really listened to it until now. It's still too old-timey singer/songwriter for me most of the time, but I can appreciate his talent a lot more now that I've taken the time to go through a good deal of it. It's no wonder that so many other artists used his songs and/or covered him in the late 60's/early 70's.

 

[Kinetic]

Nilsson's version of "Vine Street" is about a million times better than the Van Dyke Parks version. The first part--the snippet that's supposed to be an example of the band of his youth--actually sounds like it would be a great song if it were fleshed out a bit.