ALBUM REVIEW: Nilsson - The Point!

    Nilsson had already proven himself to be a singular artist by 1971 - earlier in 1967, he was thrust into a songwriting career with a $50.000 RCA deal to boot. While his Pandemonium Shadow Show debut did little in the way of commercial success, it was almost immediately met with critical acclaim, with notable praise from the likes of The Beatles. By the turn of the decade, Nilsson began to be in a league of his own with creativity, hot off the amazing baroque qualities of Aerial Ballet and the slightly more vaudevillian Harry. Not to mention a supremely beautiful collaboration with the equally brilliant Randy Newman on the Nilsson Sings Newman LP, which still remains one of my personal favorite albums of all time. Harry was riding high, and he was finally getting some commercial success, too - in the midst of Nilsson's most dominant creative streak came this storybook album. While the story of The Point! certainly isn't groundbreaking, it's more than made up for with its wholesome messaging, and the fact that Nilsson is still Nilsson, and the song's on this album are still brilliant pop compositions, strung together into an incredibly clean and tight run. Perhaps not as consistently diverse as Harry, but all the more charming.

     The Point! is, story-wise, a foray into Nilsson's make-believe Land of Point, named as such because everything in the Land of Point had one - even the people had a point. One day, however, a child named Oblio is born without a point. What follows is games of triangle toss, banishment to the Pointless Forest, a cast of colorful characters and locations, and the eventual self-realization that everything has a point, and therefore so must Oblio. Sure, it's nothing groundbreaking, but charming? You bet it is, and Nilsson manages to back many literary ideas into the fable, from self-discovery to a Ruldoph-esque lesson against discrimination. In just half an hour, Harry packs a heartfelt little story into one 12-inch disc, with Nilsson narrating the plot details in between the full songs on the album.

    What the album may lack in actual written songs is made up for in the pure quality of the songs presented. Three of the songs on here are pure Nilsson classics, from the top 40 hit of "Me and My Arrow" that tells shows the relationship between Oblio and his dog Arrow. "Think About Your Troubles" and "Life Line" are stone-cold Nilsson classics, with the former being a song focused on the cycle of the world, as well as how one's troubles compare to the grand scale of the world - it feels like a song of hope to keep going. The latter is a reflection on loneliness and isolation, almost with elements of depression in the lyricism. Outside of those three iconic moments, you have the lowkey opener "Everything's Got 'Em," which also showcases the ethos of the album's story before any exposition is necessary. "Poli High" is similarly expositional lyric-wise, focusing on a game of triangle toss between two characters - nevertheless, it's very enjoyable on its own, in large part due to the great vocal harmonies and fun delivery. "P.O.V. Waltz" is a great song, albeit probably the one song that's the most divorced from the story, yet still an excellent love song. "Are You Sleeping?" is an excellent closing track, just as upbeat and full of love as any of Nilsson's finest pop songs - frankly, I think it could put McCartney to shame.

    Nilsson proves himself to be infallible on The Point! yet again. He's able to take a relatively simple, albeit still very heartfelt story, and pack so much punch and love into it throughout the scant 32-minute running time. Complete with some of his most sensibly brilliant pop songs of his career as well as some great deep-cuts, Nilsson has strung together an awe-inspiring pop suite, and perhaps that was the entire point of what he set out to do - if that is the case, he exceeded beyond his wildest expectations. The Point! proves to be yet another gem added to Nilsson's crown of dominance over pop in the late 60s and early 70s. 

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to The Point!