be The People

Grammy-nominated New-music icon Ursula Oppens, who commissioned, premiered, and made the first recording of maverick American composer Frederic Rzewski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated!, a remarkable, monumental set of solo piano variations, has re-recorded that landmark 1975 work with Grammy winning producer Judith Sherman to mark the work’s 40th anniversary.

The Common People's only album is melancholy psychedelia, quirky but in a pretty forgettable way. The mood's set by the opening "Soon There'll Be Thunder," where an appealing two-chord melancholy melody is set to raindrop-falling haunting electric keyboard and sweeping, gloomy strings. It's a groove that's mined too often by the subsequent tracks, which are passably pleasing moody pop-psychedelia in limited doses, but too similar to each other when grouped so closely.

The Common People's only album is melancholy psychedelia, quirky but in a pretty forgettable way. The mood's set by the opening "Soon There'll Be Thunder," where an appealing two-chord melancholy melody is set to raindrop-falling haunting electric keyboard and sweeping, gloomy strings. It's a groove that's mined too often by the subsequent tracks, which are passably pleasing moody pop-psychedelia in limited doses, but too similar to each other when grouped so closely. The constant rain-cloud-hovering-over-a-hung-head ethos begins to turn sour rather than soothing after a few songs, even though the string arrangements used on just a few cuts have a nicely shivering, weepy quality. "They Didn't Even Go to the Funeral" is a most unfortunate departure into mock vaudeville humor, and while a couple other songs get dressed up with some peppy horns, it's hard to tell whether the embarrassing grunts in "This Life She Is Mine" are an attempt at funky soul or simulations of the moment of orgasm. The pace does get broken up by the hard but monotonous fuzz-guitar piano rock of "Go Every Way," as well as some more folk-rockish and melodically limited sullen stuff.