Clearly Not "The Sound of Fury"
popmusicfan | northeastern Ohio | 03/01/2008
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Billy Fury's 1960 debut album, The Sound of Fury, painted him as an imitator of Sun Records-era Elvis Presley: it was rockabilly when rockabilly was already old hat. He did, however, write his own songs, had a very good backing band, and sang with a rocking energy that was missing from some of his British "teen idol" contemporaries. This album, which focuses mostly on Fury's work from 1962 to 1964 is very different--although there's at least one track from 1960. Even though post-Sound of Fury Fury includes way too many ballads, this collection shows that he could rock, and that he was changing with the times to meet the likes of the British Invasion bands on their own terms. Some of the tracks that were recorded by the bands that actually were part of the British Invasion do not stand up all that well -- there is a subtle difference in approach, but there were some reasons that Fury never made it in the U.S.A. Perhaps if Fury had joined a "real" band he would have had more success, because tracks from a solo singing star that include two-part vocal harmony throughout just don't make any sense, and there's some of that here. It is a case of trying too hard to match the style of harmony vocals that groups such as the Beatles, the Searchers, and the Hollies were incorporating into their sounds. Still, it's a lot more interesting that some of the material American teen idols in the 1960-1964 period were churning out!"
