Disc of the day
Heaven 17 - Penthouse And Pavement
From Sheffield, synth pop and funk to stick it to Thatcher. Currently being played live!
Features Disc of the day
Philip Lynott
Solo In Soho
(Vertigo, 1980)
The best album Thin Lizzy never made...
It says a lot about Phil Lynott's personality that this, the Thin Lizzy leader's first solo album, boasted a cast of players that ranged from his hard rocking bandmates Gary Moore, Scott Gorham, Brian Robertson and Brian Downey on to Dire Straits guitarist Mark Knopfler (whose fluid interplay helps characterise Elvis tribute King's Call through to Ultravox man Midge Ure (the co-writer of the album's seventh track, electro-pop classic Yellow Pearl - later used as the theme to Top Of The Pops. A roguish man-about-town, Lynott portrayed himself as a zeitgeist surfer of the first order, suggesting that he was one step ahead of the game at any given time - hence his collaboration with Pistols men Paul Cook and Steve Jones in 1979 under the Greedies moniker for their spoof Christmas single, A Merry Jingle. Indeed, the proto-rap of Talk In '79, Solo In Soho's closing track, saw Lynott attempting to prove just how in touch he was with the current scene, reading as it does like a Who's Who of the artists that defined that year (The Clash, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Nina Hagen and The Police are among the 20-plus acts mentioned).
Lynott's genre-hopping was such that, while recording Lizzy's granite-tough Black Rose album, he emerged with a surfeit of material that eschewed his day band's trademarked sound. Much of that material - such as the cod-reggae of the title track, and the R&B strut of Tattoo - ended up on this hugely entertaining 10-tracker. Having said that, the album's stand-out tracks - Dear Miss Lonely Hearts, Ode To A Black Man (later covered by Detroit garage punkers The Dirtbombs) - could easily have made it on to Lizzy's 1980 album, Chinatown.
While the album's evident diversity created a certain amount of confusion among fans when it was released in September 1980, today Solo In Soho emerges as a bold and brave effort made by a man whose restless approach to music allowed him to rise above the caricature that so often dogged him.
Phil Alexander
Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 6:00 AM GMT 04/06/2009
Further Listening
Thin Lizzy – Bad Reputation (Vertigo, 1977)
Thin Lizzy – Black Rose (Vertigo, 1979)
Wild Horses – Wild Horses (EMI, 1980)
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