ALBUM REVIEW: Tim Buckley - Greetings From L.A.

    It does hurt to say this, but it's very true in some sense - Tim Buckley's 1970 streak of brilliance with both Lorca and the singular magnum opus that was Starsailor effectively killed his career. What little of an audience he had built prior from his folk career and jazzier releases like Happy Sad or Blue Afternoon were scared off by the psychedelic and avant-garde stylings of the aforementioned albums, both of which some of the most singular avant-folk I think I've ever heard still, especially if we're talking Starsailor, in many ways an album that's still within a league of its own. So, what is there left to do when you've scared away the few people that would listen to you? You make a funk album, I suppose - only fitting, as I was planning on doing the same when my reviews are inevitably not being read. The resulting Greetings From L.A. gets a bad rap, as there's a rather sizable chunk of people who feel that Buckley chose to give in to the industry and record something that was "accessible" to the common folk - while this is easily more commercial than the shit he was making just prior, this is really just Buckley trying on a new suit essentially. A lot of the aspects that made Buckley such a strong performer to begin with are still here in some sense, but they're subtracted on more than a few moments, be it musically or lyrically - the result is a fine album, but one that can only dream of living up to his previous works.

    "Sex funk" is the name of the game here, which is the term that is often used to describe this final era of Buckley's career, just before his untimely death (he has three albums worth of this material, and this is the first). This is probably where we see the album's two best strengths - Buckley's voice and the band's performance. The ensemble that Buckley has assembled here is a tight bunch of players, and whether they're vamping on moments like the opening "Move With Me" or they're down in the groove on a song like "Devil Eyes", they can fit the mood and keep the energy going from start to finish. Sure, they aren't as unshackled and loose as the pseudo-jazz group on Starsailor, but they do the job and they do it well. The one thing that's remained largely unchanged from his previous work is Buckley's sultry voice, which still manages to go where no white boy has gone before, and his vocal shrills and rich baritone remain as great as ever, and moments like the surprisingly climatic "Sweet Surrender" showcase some of his greatest vocals - hell, I'd argue that on some moments he sounds even more unhinged than the howling on Starsailor, although it's a different kind of unhinged ya dig? Musically speaking, this is a more than fine album that sounds great through and through, perhaps a testament to Buckley's ability to meld himself to whatever he sees fit.

    And yet, there are some serious reservations I have with this album, and this is easily best seen in the album's lyrical topic. It's not that Buckley can't be a sexually charged lyricist - he wrote "Come Here Woman", after all - but it's not something that he's particularly... good at. He's a good songwriter, and most of Happy Sad and other moments like "I Never Asked to Be Your Mountain" show that, but really listen to the lyrics on this album and ask yourself "why?". From BDSM on "Make It Right" to foot fetishes on "Devil's Eyes", some of the lyrical contents is uncomfortably bare (pun intended) and other times flat-out poorly written - "Get on Top" has the brilliant lyricism of "Well like a bitch dog in heat, we had those bed springs a squeakin' all day long." Tim Buckley, everyone. Imagine similarly sexual material like this for 40 more minutes with very little exception - "Nighthawkin'" is a somewhat dark reflection on Vietnam, complete with dropping the word "gook" towards the end of the song for that authentic Vietnam racism. "Hong Kong Bar" is actually decently written, and probably the closest thing to an earlier Tim Buckley number with its purely acoustic nature (I should add that it's probably my favorite thing on the album). Buckley's lyricism used to have a little bit of subtlety on moments like "Strange Feelin'" or the heartbreak of "Dream Letter", and in comparison Greetings From L.A. lacks the heart, and in tandem with the more conventional instrumentation makes the album feel out of character from Buckley.

    I had heard Greetings From L.A. a long time ago, probably around 2021 (God, what a different time), and it left little in the way of an impression - it continues to do little. While Buckley proves himself capable with this outfit, and even delivers a few more solid numbers, there is a real mismatch and sacrificing of what made Buckley such a singular artist on this album, and it's very much to the detriment of the album's quality. Perhaps I'm a purist with it all, but it's hard to see Greetings From L.A. as any more than the bona fide end of Tim Buckley, and not just commercially. You want white boy soul? The Beach Boys' Wild Honey is at least 10 times better than this.

RATING: ✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯✯

Listen to Greetings From L.A.