Customer Reviews

Long Player

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the Faces at their rawest. It's a album that was meant to be seen more than listened to. I had the privilege of seeing them live during this period. This was like watching a good ole bar band getting it on. They sang & drank Matus (wine) on stage & just appeared to have a great time which in turn made us feel great too. Yes it's a wee bit sloppy, but it's honest rock'n roll. Feel So Good just makes one want to get off one's arse and boogie.

ooh la la 5 stars
nod 4 stars
long player 2 stars - too much stewart, not enough lane & wood
1st step (small faces/actually 1st faces album) 3 stars

This is one of the few times I bought an album based on buzz instead of the album cover. Had to because there was nothing on the album cover anyway! I kept hearing about the Faces and finally broke down and bought this album to check them out. To this day, I have never played the entire album. A few years later I read a review of this album where the reviewer said they were a great live band that had trouble translating that energy in the studio, and I have to totally agree. To give them a second chance, I just listened to the samples here on Amazon and my opinion has not changed from what it was twenty some years ago. I remember their song Itchycoo Park (as the Small Faces) and remember liking it, especially when they used that phasing technique (tape delay). But that song was a far cry from this later album. The only way I can describe this style of music is sloppy. I like things loose and not sanitary (as a few bands like to do on record) but this is a little too sloppy for my taste.

The Faces were a rough, sloppy rock & roll band, able to pound out a tough, muscular rocker like "Had Me A Real Good Time", a bluesy ballad like "Tell Everyone", and a folk tune like "Richmond" all in one album.

The sublime ballad "Sweet Lady Mary" and the hard rocker "Had Me A Real Good Time" are two of the band's very best songs, and bassist Ronnie Lane's two ballads, "Tell Everyone" and the slide guitar-driven "Richmond", rival each other for the most touching number on the album (which ends with a lovely instrumental rendition of Henry Wood's "Jerusalem", courtesy of Ronnie Wood).
"I Feel So Good" and "Maybe I'm Amazed" are recorded live; Big Bill Broonzy's classic up-tempo blues "I Feel So Good" is good but too long, clocking in at almost nine minutes, but the Paul McCartney-number is great. Ronnie Lane and Rod Stewart share lead vocals, and they tear into the song, transforming it from a saccharine ballad to a heartfelt cry of devotion.

"Long Player" is a bit of a sloppy record, perhaps, but it's also a pretty terrific one; it may have a couple of weak moments, and it doesn't reach the dizzying heights of Rod Stewart's magnificent solo albums from the same period, but it's a fun slice of good ol' rock n' roll.

The warmth and self-depricating humor of A NOD'S AS GOOD AS A WINK TO A BLIND HORSE has always made it my favorite Faces LP, but the swagger and jammy feeling of LONG PLAYER puts it close to the top of the list as well.

On LONG PLAYER the Faces sound more bluesy, more British (as opposed to the Irish tilt of A NOD'S AS GOOD AS A WINK...) and at times more like Rod Stewart's handpicked touring band. Ronnie Lane stands out with a couple of great tunes, a shared vocal with Rod on a great cover of McCartney's classic "Maybe I'm Amazed," and his always wonderful bass, the spine of all Faces records.

This was back in the days when Rod Stewart still had some soul and could sing English Folk, Rock, R&B and Pub tunes all on the same album without missing a step. He's in fine form here, as he was on most Faces records, all his Jeff Beck stuff and all of his own stuff right up to FOOT LOOSE & FANCY FREE. He couldn't pull off a fun-time gem like "Had Me A Real Good Time" today to save his life; it remains one of my all-time favorite Faces tunes.

You can't go wrong with any FACES LP, and LONG PLAYER is definitely in the upper tier.

The Faces were a good example of great potential not totally realized in the studio. None of their four albums, not even the great OOH LA LA, were as good as seeing them live was. LONG PLAYER certainly has it's moments, but, tellingly, what're best on here are the two tracks from a gig in New York in late 1970. The band's version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed" is terrific---they take a nice but slight song and really power the sucker up. "Feel So Good," the other live track, isn't as rousing, but it has a great call-and-response moment between Rod Stewart and the audience. The rest of the album is okay, with "Richmond," written and sung by bassist Ronnie Lane, and "Sweet Lady Mary," featuring one of Stewart's prettiest vocals, as the best studio tracks. But when a band of (at that time) self-professed rockers only truly rocks out with abandon on ONE track, that's very disappointing.

This is the album where the Faces came into their own as a band. After the breakup of the Small Faces and the recording of the Faces' debut "First Step" in 1970, Rons Lane and Wood, Kenny Jones, Ian McLagan and frontman Rod Stewart emerged with the first of the two best albums of their all too short career--the other being the equally excellent "A Nod Is as Good as a Wink..."

While there's plenty here for fans of Rod the Mod to enjoy [including a stunning live version of Paul McCartney's "Maybe I'm Amazed," which had to leave Sir Paul slack-jawed after hearing it!], the real treasures are Ronnie Lane's contributions: the folkish "Richmond" and the ballad "Tell Everyone," the very type of songs Lane would make a career out of after leaving the Faces only two years after this 1971 release.

If you recently bought Best of the Faces: Good Boys When They're Asleep and want more, this is your next stop. Then get "A Nod Is As Good As a Wink." And then shake your head that there are so few artists out there today who can match the ballsy rock 'n' roll of the Faces.