Classic Rock Bottom

For the twenty-first album in the series I thought up all by myself, it's the first time a Pete Townshend album has been featured as either the L/F album OR AOTW. This is an exciting time, ladies and gentlemen!

All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes is the 1982 followup to 1980's platinum certified Empty Glass, which is one hell of a fantastic album. Empty Glass reached #5 on the US charts and had three singles reach the top 90, with "Let My Love Open The Door" reaching #9.

ATBCHCE reached #26 on the US charts and has not been certified. "Face Dances, Pt. 2" reached #102 on the singles chart but it did chart higher on the AOR singles chart (#15) with "Slit Skirts" (#41) and "Stardom In Action" (#30) following.

Even though this is a rock album, it's more mellow compared to Empty Glass. This album is also not "immediate" compared to Empty Glass in that it takes more than one listen. When I first heard it, I was letdown, but it has really grown on me over the years.  Empty Glass is the better album, but this one is nothing to be ashamed about.

Now for allmusic.com's fascinating view:

If Empty Glass, an album filled with songs that could have been performed by the Who, was a solo album because it was too revealing and personal, All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes was a solo record since it's impossible to hear anyone but Townshend wanting to indulge in this deliberately arty, awkwardly poetic bullsh*t. Where his other albums showed an inclination toward classical-influenced art rock, this is defiantly modern art, filled with stagey prose, synthesizers, drum machines, angular song structures, and a heavy debt to new wave -- in short, Townshend's vision of what modern music should sound like in 1982. This kind of record taunts cynics and critics, being nearly impenetrable in its content even if the production and the music itself aren't all that inaccessible. The problem is, this is Arty with a capital A and Pretentious with a capital P, yet Townshend never seems embarrassed, never shies away from indulging himself in his own ego. While autobiographical to a certain extent (how else to read "Somebody Saved Me" or "Stardom in Acton," which drops the Who's home borough?), it's hard to tell exactly what he's on about. So it's easy to see why many listeners are exasperated instead of intrigued (or even admire its damn impenetrability), but it's also easy to get fascinated by the album's very obtuseness. This is very much of a piece and, apart from the gems "North Country Girl" and "Slit Skirts," it's hard to separate individual songs and see them as their own works. Indeed, separating All the Best Cowboys from its era is even difficult, since the album's surface glistens with new wave synths and guitars; this is clearly a record Townshend could only have made in 1982, emboldened by new wave, the reaction to Empty Glass, new sobriety, and general hubris. For these reasons, this is very much loved by a certain portion of Townsend's fan base -- and for the same reasons many, many people despise it. And any record that fractures an audience so considerably is worth a spin.

All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

1. Stop Hurting People
2. The Sea Refuses No River
3. Prelude
4. Faces Dances Part Two
5. Exquisitely Bored
6. Communication
7. Stardom In Action
8. Uniforms (Corp D'esprit)
9. North Country Girl
10. Somebody Saved Me
11. Slit Skirts

Availability: The remastered version with three bonus tracks (not included here) runs around $12.

 

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Dude !!!!  Was totally just jamming out to Empty Glass yesterday!

And yet.....NO COLLUSION!

Correct, I don't collude....

I own Empty Glass and love it, its classic!  But I didn't catch onto this one and I don't know why... I love Townshends quirkiness and approach to his albums...

Fun opener, I like the feel of it and the spoken segments don't bother me on this song.  In fact it set a good mood!  There's no missteps by the time I get to Face Dances Pt. 2.  The song is familiar to me and I like it, and while were at it, the Who's of the same name isn't as bad as critics make it out to be.  Exquisitely Bored is hilarious and not boring at all.

Easily one of Rocks most creative assets, Townshend makes everything work...  The quirkiness of Communicate only remains interesting because it Pete, and while song is no where near the best one on this album, it fits.  Stardom In Action is the just ok tune on here, the album picks up again after this one track. 

I liked this, a lot!  Nice work...

I'm not really that big of a fan of Townshend's.  Don't get me wrong, I understand his contribution to Rock and Roll music, and he has written or co-written some killer songs, but he's just okay to me.

I've seen this album before.  Somewhere.  I think maybe at the used vinyl store.  Heck, I may have even bought it for a buck, I can't quite remember.  But I've never heard it, until now.

The Sea Refuses No River is really good.  I noticed in Prelude that when he sings in his high falsetto, sometimes he sounds just like Will Ferrell in Elf when he's singing about his father.

Face Dances Part 2 and Exquisitely Bored were good songs also, but Communication is not.  As a matter of fact, a pretty decent album just flattens out and goes nowhere after track five.  I have heard the closer before, but I've never cared much for it.  Still don't.

I'd say this was a fairly good post.  At least half of it was.

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