love and other bruises

hands-up those who had had air supply's songs as his love anthems in his primary or secondary school? i would be the first one to own up. when i first heard "lost in love" in the late 70s, i instantly made it my lover's concerto, the kind that i reserved for my 1st girlfriend. true enough, i did get a girl at the tender age of 17, a pretty one no less, and those air supply melodies filled up my bittersweet salad days more than any other pop music. when i joined ACS, ipoh in form 1, air supply was very much the rage in malaysia and every aspiring school bands played their tunes to death in prom nights and other social functions. i subsequently managed to woo my 2nd girlfriend, another pretty lass, in form 6 and we too shared fond memories of air supply music.

looking back, air supply's music wasn't really earth-shattering nor creative but it is sweet and simple enough to appreciate. when i went to varsity in sydney, i soon outgrew air supply and moved on to other genres.

so how could i resist when i saw this audiophile CD in new disc village (adelphi) last saturday? for 30 years, air supply has never made an acoustic cd, with a guitar and two voices (russell and graham), just like my soon-to-be-released album, 2V1G. with much anticipation, i bought the CD without much trying and hesitation. even air supply is making audiophile CD, how times have changed :-)

so it is any good? sure, the musical elements are still there in abundance, aided by a more-than-decent (tho' not excellent) recording. some of the songs really fit the acoustic arrangement. but something irks me...

it must be ageing that causes russell hitchcock (the shorter guy) to lose some of his high octave energy and smoothness; he just can't seem to hit the high notes as effortlessly as in the past, like, 30 years ago. in fact, his high pitch is coarse and edgy. he even struggles in some songs like "making love out of nothing at all", which has a beautiful climax. his rendition in some songs is what we call in hokkien "jia lat", very energy-sapping and tiring.

having said that, i must say i still love some of the songs like "lost in love", "all out of love", "two less lonely people in the world" in this simple acoustic arrangement. these are eternal classics to those love-lorn students in the 70s and 80s.

if you are air supply fan, get it without batting an eyelid, else better listen to russell's high notes and judge whether you can accept the difference.

p/s - i don't think this CD has reached malaysia yet but you can enquire with interglobal (03-41428133) since they distribute for evo sound, which this CD is licensed under.

music - 8/10
sonic - 7/10