Anthony Stewart Head & George Sarah - Music For Elevators

What Can You Tell Me - 4
Babies [The In Between] - 3
Owning My Mistakes - 3
[Segue] - 3
We Can Work It Out - 4
Qu'est Ce Que J'ai Fait - 3
All The Fun Of The Fair - 3
This Town In The Rain - 3
Talk To You - 3
Mum's Song - 3
Last Time - 3
One Man's Rain - 3
[Segue] - 3
Change - 3
Staring At The Sun - 3
End Game - 3
Total - 50 stars / 16 tracks = 3.13 stars, normalized to 3.0 stars

It's odd to say that I was disappointed by an album because of its adventurousness, but it's really how I feel about Music For Elevators. It must be frustrating for Anthony Stewart Head, as well as any other actor from a TV show with such a fervent cult following, to always be associated with it. However, it would be dishonest of me to ignore the context of my experience with something I am reviewing. Therefore, I will freely admit that I only picked up this album because I knew Head from Buffy and because, when I heard him sing on the show (whether it was during the musical episode, or the scene from the episode "The Yoko Factor" where he sings "Freebird," I liked what I heard.

Then, when I finally got around to listening to Music For Elevators, I didn't get what I was expecting. Instead of the man-and-guitar ballads and croons, held up by Head's really-cool-experienced-man-credibility that I was anticipating (nay, hoping for), the album is a collection of electronic-laden songs that are unconventional enough to undermine what most people bought the album to hear: Tony's awesome voice.

A few of the tracks are cool enough to still be enjoyable to someone who came in for the same reasons I did. The opener, "What Can You Tell Me" for example, despite not putting total focus on the vocals, effectively uses them as a great flavour in the otherwise electronic soundscape. Then there's the cool, post-apocalyptic version of The Beatles' "We Can Work It Out."

Other critics have spoken highly of this album. Either they're wrong, or they are just better at separating their expectations from their opinions. Now if you need me, I'll be watching Giles clips on Youtube.