Emergence (Remastered)

Album Review

The dictionary defines "emergence" as "the act or an instance of emerging," which is a redundant term for an established star releasing this album in 1971 while enjoying recent chart success writing "Workin' on a Groovy Thing" for the 5th Dimension on their Age of Aquarius album from 1969 as well as the Roger Atkins/Neil Sedaka composition "Puppet Man" on 1970's Portrait LP by that same group. This project is a deep musical statement from the team of Howard Greenfield and Neil Sedaka, featuring songs that provoke thoughts with their almost soap-opera look at Hollywood, the closest thing to a concept album by this legendary Brill Building duo. Listen to "Is Anybody Gonna Miss You" and see if Elton John and Bernie Taupin didn't base "Country Comforts" on it (as that pair based perhaps their entire career on Sedaka/Greenfield — the piano man meets the lyricist and they work for publishers on two different continents!). Stephen Thomas Erlewine calls John's 1971 Tumbleweed Connection "a loose concept album about the American West," and the similarity is due either to serendipity or likeminded artists watching each other very closely a few years before they would all work together.

Lee Holdridge arranges and conducts the strings on the production by Wally Gold, creating a dense sound that would change abruptly on 1972's Solitaire disc, which Sedaka himself produced and arranged in association with the band 10cc. The leadoff track, "I'm a Song (Sing Me)," is extremely lustful — "Sing me, roll me around on your tongue" — you really can't get more specific than that. There's also the conscious use of cliché: "I've got a rhyme that I've had for some time" is as typical as "Daniel" on a "plane...heading for Spain." On "Wish I Was a Carousel" the pair craft an idea that they would embellish on Jane Olivor's 1976 debut when she covered their "One More Ride on the Merry-Go-Round." Recorded in New York City's RCA Studios with music supervision by Don Kirshner, the album sounds like it was developed on the West Coast, "Cardboard California" and "Silent Movies" definitely evoking those themes. Ritchie Yorke's liner notes state that the disc took three months to "put down on tape," with Sedaka telling that writer, "These 12 songs are the best I've written in 18 years of working with Howie Greenfield," adding, "And we've written more than 500 songs together." The cover photo has the singer looking almost modern-day Tumbleweed Connection-ish in a "today" cowboy outfit standing against what could be a barn door. Perhaps there is a "connection." Like Solitaire which followed, this combination of tunes is Neil Sedaka the artist stretching out. Play the remake of "Cardboard California" from 1976's Steppin' Out to see the difference. Sedaka's voice battles the strings on an album he made with Dean Parks, Richie Zito, and West Coast session band the Section producer Robert Appere. Then listen to how comfortable the song sounds as recorded half a decade earlier with Graham Gouldman and company.