Opening the mail is fun these days. The volume of unsolicited discs has risen to the point where I'm pleasantly surprised by something that comes across my desk just about every week. This week's unexpected -- and very guilty -- pleasure is Billy Ocean's Ultimate Collection.
Let me be clear about something. There are things I love in the world -- my wife and kids, baseball, writing, hot fudge, the beach, etc. And there are things I hate in the world -- lyrically lightweight, musically antiseptic and over-produced top 40 pop music.
Okay, I'm sure there must be other things I hate; that just happens to be the one that comes to mind right now. So just exactly why didn't I hate this album?
In many ways, '80s popstar Billy Ocean represents everything I
despised about much of that era's hit music -- the reliance on
electronic effects over real instruments, the use of gaudy
production tricks to dress up inconsequential songs, the
way-over-the-top sappiness of the ballads.
This disc is full of all of the above, and yet I found my head bobbing along to the music more than once. Part of that is the pure nostalgia effect of hearing a song like "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car" ("beep, beep" go the background vocals) for the first time in 15 years. I mean (gulp), it is kinda catchy. And "Caribbean Queen (No More Love On The Run)"? Maybe even more than "Jump" or "When Doves Cry" or "Like A Virgin," that song is 1984. Hearing it again is an instant flashback.
A bit about Mr. Ocean, nee Lesley Sebastian Charles. Born in Trinidad, Billy moved with his family to London at a young age and grew up mixing calypso music with Otis Redding and the Beatles (why he ended up looking like Billy Dee Williams, but singing more like Phil Collins than any of the above, is one of life's mysteries). It was while working the night shift at a Ford factory that he finally got his first break and began recording a string of increasingly successful singles.
The style Ocean eventually settled on could best be described as soul music for yuppies. Smooth, clean, crisp, synthesizer-laden production of ultralight pop songs infused with just enough rhythm and soul to keep them from simply floating away. This music has more sheen and less depth than freshly waxed linoleum. And yet…
Even "There'll Be Sad Songs (To Make You Cry)" and "Suddenly," a pair of top 40 ballads with enough saccharin each to kill a moose, have a certain undeniable momentum to them. Ocean does have a very pleasant voice, and is a master at selling these songs -- at a certain point while listening to this album, I began to imagine him auctioning Frigidaires by the truckload somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.
Billy Ocean's appeal -- as clearly identified right there in the liner notes to this disc -- is the "sheer musical exuberance" he brings to his work. I may have a hard time getting into this music, but Billy doesn't… he is so into it he can sell the dumbest lyric ("Love Zone"), the cheesiest '80s keyboard tones ("The Colour Of Love"), or the most trite arrangement ("Mystery Lady") with the purity of his enthusiasm for the song. He believes, and that makes you want to.
I can't give this a higher rating simply because I detest this particular genre so -- but I can at least give Billy Ocean credit for giving these songs his all. It's more than a lot of his popstar colleagues manage, and it stamps him as what he is -- a pro, and a pretty damn successful one at that. Good on ya, mate.