We're All Normal and We Want Our Freedom: a Tribute to Arthur Lee and Love

Review

Named after a key line in Arthur Lee's "The Red Telephone" (itself a steal from the then-fashionable play Marat/Sade, also parodied by the Bonzo Dog Band in their freakout classic "We Are Normal"), the extremely uneven Love tribute We're All Normal and We Want Our Freedom at least sidesteps the common tribute band malady of songs that sound like the original versions, only not quite as good. Nearly all 21 bands on the compilation interpret Lee's songs in their own styles, a good thing since a band probably couldn't sound like Love's unique blend of hard rock and easy listening if they tried. The question is, can Lee's songs make the transition comfortably, or more to the point, whether these are bands who should be attempting Lee's songs in the first place. Unfortunately, the answer in about a third of these tracks is, "no, they shouldn't," with Love Battery's "No Matter What You Do" and Gobblehoof's plain, wretched "Alone Again Or" the most obvious culprits. However, the tracks by Teenage Fanclub, the Television Personalities, Eggs, and especially David Kilgour and Martin Phillips' sublime reading of "A Message to Pretty" are all excellent. They're not a patch on the originals, of course, but they show what can happen when a good band and an interesting cover come together.