Album Review

Yet another Rhino compilation

By Adam Stackhouse
Music Editor
Various Artists
Cocktail Mix, Vol. 1-3
(Rhino)

Over the last couple of years, space-age pop compilations have been flooding the market--much to my exhaustion. This is the fourth semester that I've been the music editor and I've done an article about this type of music every semester. Frankly, I'm becoming rather bored of it.
Every time a new compilation comes out, I don't even have to look at the liner notes to know that there will be, at the very least, a few songs that overlap with the last compilation that I've received. And while there will usually be a number of interesting tracks on the latest compilation, ultimately, the haphazard jumble of artists all sound the same after a few tired hours of listening.
So why am I doing another review of a space-age pop compilation? Well, pretty much to say that this will be the last (and that includes the new mega-volume from Capitol Records.) Now I'm not saying that space-age pop won't be covered in this paper during the rest of my rule. Reissues of the original albums from which these compilations borrow would bring a sigh of relief. You have to wonder if anyone listens to full albums anymore.
If you really must know how the latest compilation rates, let's get it over with. Rhino's three-disc Cocktail Mix is obviously no revelation. The first disc, Bachelor's Guide To The Galaxy, is compiled by Irwin Chusid-- the New Jersey public radio DJ who helped to incite all of this space-age madness and who seems to compile and write the liner notes to every space-age compilation. A quick glance at the liner notes may hint that Chusid is becoming as tired as I am. He says all of the same things that he usually does and includes next to no in-depth analysis of the music. There are a few interesting tracks that you probably haven't heard before. Most notable is Ferrante & Teicher's "Che Si Dice," which features the use of the "prepared" piano--a creation of the late avant-garde composer John Cage "who wedged bits of rubber and hardware between the strings (of a piano) to deaden their tone and create a gamelan-like percussive effect," as the liner notes explain.
The compilation takes a deeper plunge with the second disc, Martini Madness, which is basically a hasty grouping of songs with a Latin flavor. It becomes most apparent on this disc that Rhino had to settle for lesser renditions of some of the songs on this compilation. Instead of Stan Getz and Jo‡o Gilberto's version of "Girl from Ipanema," Walter Wanderley's instrumental inferior is here. Even worse, Nancy Wilson's version of "Call Me" is on this disc instead of Astraud Gilberto's masterful rendition. Like the first disc, there are a number of good tracks, but thematically, this disc is weak. It might as well be a mix tape from one of your friends that has a healthy record collection--and that would be a lot more inexpensive.
While the first two discs are tolerable--and can even be enjoyable if you're not as critical (read: cynical) as I am--disc three, Swingin' Singles, is annoying. For one, the liner notes have next to no informational value and seem like they were written by someone in an English Composition class. Musically, this disc seems to be a group of conservative pop singles from the `50s and early `60s that rock was created to destroy. Now, who honestly wants to listen to songs by Sammy Davis Jr., Dean Martin, and Robert Mitchum? Well, maybe this one for comic value. This makes this whole compilation seem like some Conservative plot to infiltrate the musical tastes of young "hipsters" (the members of the younger generation who didn't fall for phase one of the plot --contemporary pop music) and warp them into walking zombies with "safe" musical tastes.
OK, I think I'll stop before I get in over my head. I'm going to go listen to the new Lou Reed album. He's old, but at least he has some fight left in him.