Search - Richard O'Brien :: Absolute O'Brien

Ritz's Bits

J. Norman | Phoenix, AZ United States | 09/25/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Richard O'Brien is a very talented singer/songwriter/actor. But unfortunately, outside of "Rocky Horror", "Shock Treatment" and maybe even "Dark City" -- most of his work isn't known about, even by the devout Rocky people. Many of the songs on this album are from his Mephistopheles Smith live act he was developing in the early and mid-90s and finally gave up when the costume effect he insisted on going on gave him problems. He did however record some of the best songs (minus, unfortunately, "Disgracefully Yours" the title of his act) for this CD. He then added other songs that he wrote during the making of "Dark City" and recorded most everything in a soft jazz style that was decidedly different from his earlier tunes (exception "Running With The Noisy Boys.")Does this style work for Richard? Not as well as Richard playing it Rock and Roll style, or listening to him play acoustically on his guitar (oh yeah!) But it does work.Some songs like "It's Up To You" and "Rhythm of the Heartbeat" (the latter from Meph Smith/Disgracefully Yours) sound more like something you'd be listening to at Starbucks and are just a tad too mellow. The jazz style, however works terrifically on other songs. While I prefer the unrelease acoustic version of "Incubus of Love" the jazz version certainly does it justice. "Angel In Me" also works well here. But where it really scores is on two songs "Ain't That to Die For" (again from his act) which is a great upbeat number, and "One Hundred Dollars an Hour" -- the rare song about prostitution and sensuality.I'll be the first to profess more of a fondness for his rawer (and exceptionally difficult to find) earlier works released on vinyl such as his Kimi & Ritz and Dicky Hart singles, or the cast album to "The Stripper," another musical he co-wrote with Hartley (Hartley did the music, Richard the lyrics.) But we won't see a legitimate release of those songs on CD for year, and Richard would like to do another album before revisiting those works. But if you've already bought Rocky and Shock treatment, here's a chance to get another dose of cleverness from the shaven-headed one, Ritz."