No matter what institution you're a part of, be it politics, academia or just an everyday workplace, it's always good for perspective to have somebody around who's bound and determined to demonstrate on a daily basis that it's all ultimately just a pile of horseshit. For early 70's rock, that man is undoubtedly Harry Nilsson. When it comes to being the neighborhood subversive asshole, the usual weapons of choice are humor, satire and mockery, and Nilsson's got them in droves. As far as I can tell, the only thing he actually cares about is singing ridiculously awesomely. The rest seems to be an indiscriminate sampling and deconstruction of pop music in all its myriad forms with an emphasis on the puerile. It worked pretty well for Nilsson on the previous year's breakthrough album Nilsson Schmilsson (though he'd already had successful singles and was well-known for a cover of Fred Neil's "Everybody's Talkin'"). When crafting a follow-up, it would appear that Harry's main goal was to throw the record label's desires to revisit his previous success back in their face with an album so full of jokey throwaways that it was pretty much guaranteed not to be as successful as its predecessor.
And yet, Son of Schmilsson just might be my favorite Harry Nilsson, from its righteous B horror movie cover (and sound effects at the end of the first track) to all of the burping and gargling (for serious) to the kid-in-a-candy-store smorgasbord of musical styles represented here, this album
is pretty much a party record all the way. Old school rock and roll is probably the genre of choice, as in "Take 54" where Harry "sings [his] balls off" to impress a woman who wanders into the studio, or "ou're Breakin' My Heart," where Nilsson's sudden profanity sits at odds with the song's bouncy piano riff, or on the fake live boogie of " At My Front Door." But there's so much more than rock and roll, which obviously isn't Nilsson's musical passion--"Joy" has got to be my favorite, sending up country music with all of the common tropes (spoken word, Latin flourishes, cheesy puns); I can't help but laugh every time when Nilsson sneers "good...bad...good bad" toward the end. There's also ridiculous pseudo-Caribbean music on "The Most Beautiful World in the World" and sort of a musical theater vibe on "I'd Rather Be Dead," which famously features a chorus of retirement home residents singing about how they'd "rather be dead than wet my bed" (make sure to watch the equally hilarious documentary about the making of this album for more on that detail).
At its base level, though, this is a pop album, full of great melodies, catchy changes and Nilsson's voice and personality pushed to the front by anonymous session musicians playing a million different instruments. For all the ridiculousness and the fact that the songs are pretty easy to grasp after a couple of listens, Nilsson's voice is (as always) a revelation, silky smooth but capable of brilliant natural distortion and some ornamentations other singers could only dream of on songs like "Take 54," "At My Front Door" and "Spaceman." Don't tell anybody, but the merry prankster exhibits signs of actually having a heart on the velvety ballad "Remember (Christmas)" and the thoughtful "Turn on Your Radio." Depending on which way you look at it, these songs are almost all throwaway novelty tunes or this is just a good time party album. Either way, I think it's one hell of a fun ride with no strings attached and only a slight hangover.
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