The Smooth Oddness of Rupert Holmes

Proving that there is a reason that I read Dangerous Minds, this post put me on alert to this Tumblr site.

Tumblr lends itself to one-joke premises and this one is good for a giggle. It takes dramatic scenes from well-known films and scores them with Rupert Holmes smash hit "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)."

It's worth a look because Holmes' chorus really does evoke a feeling of "This is what I like to do," so when it's applied to, say, Hannibal Lector beating a guard to death, it's a lot of fun.

The album "Escape" comes from, Partners in Crime, is one of my recent obsessions. It's a snapshot into a part of the music scene that had a lot of momentum in the late 70s but has all but disappeared today.

Take a listen to Holmes' follow-up single, "Him:"

It's all there, isn't it? Holmes has the Jewfro, the tinted glasses, the open shirt. He speaks in the soft and serious tone favored by the 70s "sensitive man" archetype. The song itself has a AM-gold feeling and is almost as catchy as "Escape."

Now, try "Lunch Hour." Notice you have to go to MySpace to hear the damn thing--that's how out of favor Holmes' style is these days. In fact, the only reason Partners in Crime is available is because "Escape" was so big.

"Lunch Hour" is more indicative of the album's style. Squarely in the story-song genre, like the singles, but with the passable melodic structure of "Escape"'s verses.

That's the album in a nutshell. Pretty good melodies, pretty good wordplay, pretty good performance. Holmes is clever enough and he generally substitutes complexity for inspiration. The musicianship is eminently capable but, again, not inspired.

My interest in the also-rans of the 70s centers around the evolution of relationships. Holmes is no slouch in this department. "Escape," of course, is about a man responding to a singles ad only to find out that it was put there by his "lady." "Him" is about a man whose girl has another man in her life. "Lunch Hour" is about people cheating in the middle of the day. The title track is about sub/dom relationships.

Goofiest of the bunch is "Answering Machine:"

I have a lot of fun with this album because the feelings that Holmes evokes aren't part of our modern emotional vocabulary. Light music is probably the most difficult to pull off and is almost absent from the landscape.

Holmes got his start as a songwriter/performer making bubblegum music (another of my favorites):

His biggest hit from that era was "Timothy," a song about cannibalism:

His first album got the notice of Barbra Streisand--at her peak in the mid-70s--and she collaborated with him for a time, using his songs in A Star is Born.

Holmes didn't disappear after his moment in the sun. He went on to regular success in theater, created and wrote AMC's first original series Remember WENN and has lately written some novels. Who wouldn't mind an evening listening to him reminisce?