Linda Ronstadt & The Nelson Riddle Orchestra-What's New (1983)
Artist: Linda Ronstadt & The Nelson Riddle Orchestra
Catalog Number: 9 60260
Year of Release: 1983
Country and Year of Edition: US 1983
Sell Price: $3.11
Sell Date: 3/13/24
Condition: VG+/VG+
Discogs Last Sold 3/11/24 VG+/VG+ $4.00
Low: $0.50
Median: $2.70
Average: $2.94
High: $10.00
Current low price: $0.74
Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 564
Have/Want: 6239/82
Where Sold: White Cloud, MI
Time It Took To Sell: 9 years
Where and When Bought: discarded collection
Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: C+
Sad To See It Go: No
Linda Thermostat, as my Dad referred to her in the 70's, decided she needed a radical reworking in the 80's. She was a long way from when my father brought home her Don't Cry Now album lent to him by a co-worker about a decade before. That was an "alt-country" record before the genre existed and it got heavy household airplay by my mom. I don't think the loaner was ever given back.
Anyway shortly after that she exploded with "You're No Good" and Heart Like A Wheel and her 70's hits of mostly covers either by early rock 'n roll masters like Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison or songwriters like Warren Zevon. She flirted with "New Wave" in the early 80's with Mad Love, but this was a left turn away from Rock and even Top 40 radio. Get Closer released the the year before was a rock belter. But Linda had an art project in the making her management didn't want her to do that proved to be a commercial juggernaut without "hits." She partnered with Nelson Riddle, Sinatra's Orchestrator, in the final years of his life for three albums to do standards from the pre-Rock era. What's New was the first in 1983 followed by Lush Life in 1984. He died in October 1985 of cirrhosis related cardiac and kidney failure while recording the last. For Sentimental Reasons was released posthumously in 1986.
What's New was the first shot. The kind of record that won a Grammy which it did in 1984 for Female Pop Vocal Performance in the year Thriller won everything else. When it came out I couldn't even acknowledge What's New was even something to consider listening to. Ronstadt was someone I liked in childhood to the point of having her Simple Dreams cassette and both Greatest Hits volumes in real time, but What's New was a bridge too far for me at the time. I still was dreading listening to it when it sold a few days ago, but that was just an inherent bias against Jazz Pop Vocal not done by Black Jazz Artists like Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald or Nina Simone. Beyond that, I still don't really want to go there. I can appreciate What's New for what it is, what it represents for the performer, what it represents for the music itself since it was Riddle's last stand. Yet, it still feels a bit clinical to me and no matter who does the "Great American Songbook" it always will and at 53 I feel I will never grow to enjoy it. I didn't enjoy it when Dylan did it most of last decade. I don't enjoy Tony Bennett. If I'm going to cram the medicine down my throat I'll stick with 50's Sinatra which Nelson Riddle also orchestrated.
Only The Lonely was a Sinatra album I force fed myself in high school and What's New has the same closer, which in both instances are my favorite song of the record, "Goodbye."
You'll take the high road. I'll take the low.
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