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For The People
Mark's NEW TUNES on this album blew me away...!!! YES! The new CD "For The People" was well worth the wait! I heard three hard rockin'jams from the CD for the first time in Taylor,Michigan, at a live Mark Farner show. Whoa! I definitely wanted to buy the CD and I did!
I had brand spankin' NEW Mark songs to listen to on the way home! I hit play in my truck and the sounds had me FLYING down I-75 with a wider-wingspan than I started with, thanks to songs like "For The People" (this hard-rockin' song improved my gas mileage) and "Cry Baby" (sets such a strong musical hook that it didn't even take a quick yank to catch me). I listened to it twice and woke up the next morning and it was still playing in my head!
And WoW! The transcendental "Waiting Here For You" is just pure Spirit in Psalm (song). WHOA! You need to check out the song "Girl". ~*Beautiful*~. Mark and Beth Griffith have voices that intertwine so soft and sweet that it finds the place where you hurt and brushes it by with the words you need to receive. Just a masterfully elegant interpretation of emotion too. Wow again!
All songs on this CD are great. Like "Your My Girl" and "Symptoms". Just awesome honesty. Mark really seems to be getting closer to HIS home. He's still our captain (wearing a wrist bracelet bearing the names of our MIA/POW veterans). He cares SO MUCH about our country and our people that he has filled his songs with words of HOPE and sent it out "For The People". Go Mark! With winged N'rG!
~Suez
For The People - Mark Farner
Before I get into my review, I've always said that Mark Farner could "sing the phone book", and I'd buy it, cause I think he's that good. I am a bit jaded, being a lifelong fan, so I'll say that if I was reviewing this with only my head and not my heart, only two, well they're not criticisms, but only two things would I address in only a tiny way negative.
First, the song "Symptoms" isn't way up there to me, with the rest of them. I think the subject matter and Mark's lyrics are right on, but the breakdown in the chorus wasn't for me, and it felt a bit plodding. The other thought I had was in the song "Girl", I would have come back to a chorus again at the end cause it's such a strong hook, and I would have preferred a tastier more melodic solo(sort of like the one in "Borderline").
But enough of that stuff. It's fu$%^&ing awesome to have him back, I gotta tell you! (no I don't, cause you all knew that already). For a guy that means so much to me (and us) to really deliver on so many levels here, it really inspires me. His vocals are great, I love the harmonies and the arrangements. One of my favorite things is the drumming. I've only ever heard H-Bomb on GFR and Farner songs that I knew already. What he does in these 11 songs is exactly what should be done, tasteful and exciting, and the drum sound is great too!
I feel real strongly about the songs "Girl" and "You're My Girl", probably the most commercial things on the album. I think that "You Know Who I Am" fits in with both rock music as well as Gospel. It's such an uplifting message that could cross so many musical barriers.
"Where Do We Go From Here" didn't jump out at me at first, but man it's great, and now I can't get enough of it. You know I don't always agree with all of Mark's politics or beliefs, but he's got as much a right to say them as anyone. There are artists out there like Neil Young, Pearl Jam, the Dixie Chicks who speak their mind and it's all over the news, well, Mark's been around just as long or longer than most of em' and he deserves his place back on a national soapbox, right?
The other tunes like "Cry Baby", "Nadean" and "This Time" are just good, timeless rock and roll songs. Again, the playing by all members of the band is just right. The sound is both timely and timeless.
Which all leads us back to, well, to use Mark's words, "Where Do We Go From Here"? This music needs to get out there, and my hat goes off to all my good friends at the Yahoo! group Mark Farner's Railroad who do their best to make this happen. I've gotten his CD into the hands of some radio stations and a national columnist to check out. I feel his management needs to come through big time on this. We've waited years for new music from Mark, and he's really taken care of us with this new album. It would be a shame if it ends up just being a "well kept secret".
It's sort of like, when you fall in love and want everyone to know about it, just to see them as happy as you are about it, well that's the way I feel about "For The People".
Lee Ottman
Freehold NJ