''Mr. Music Head'' is the fourth solo album by
Adrian Belew, released in April 1989, and his first for
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Recording Corporation (simply known as Atlantic Records) is an American record label founded in October 1947 by Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson. Over its first 20 years of operation, Atlantic earned a reputation as one of the most i ...
. It features the single, "Oh Daddy".
Background
The album was recorded following the unwilling split of Belew's mid-1980s band
the Bears, which dissolved due to a lack of record company support (following which Belew managed to secure a solo deal). Belew recorded the majority of the album by himself, making use of his own multi-instrumental abilities and his ability to create assorted sonic and instrumental impressions via processed guitar sound. The album also features a prominent use of
piano
The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...
, an instrument on which Belew was not particularly confident but which he applied to many songs which he believed required it.
The album features Belew's second duet with his daughter Audie, with whom he had previously recorded the piano-and-guitar duet "The Final Rhino" on his ''
Lone Rhino'' album in late 1981 (when Audie was four). This time, Belew wrote a humorous father-and-daughter pop duet for himself and the now-eleven-year-old Audie to sing, poking gentle fun at Belew's own pop ambitions and career to date. The video for the single "Oh Daddy" featured Belew playing the rubber-necked guitar prop which he'd previously employed for the ''
Home of the Brave'' project with
Laurie Anderson.
Track listing
All songs written by Adrian Belew, except where noted.
# "Oh Daddy" – 3:05
# "House of Cards" – 3:44
# "One of Those Days" – 3:21
# "Coconuts" (Belew, Stan Hertzman) – 3:29
# "Bad Days" – 3:06
# "Peaceable Kingdom" – 3:36
# "Hot Zoo" – 4:24
# "Motor Bungalow" – 3:36
# "Bumpity Bump" – 3:46
# "Bird in a Box" – 3:16
# "1967" – 5:23
# "Cruelty to Animals" – 4:23
Notes
* The last track, "Cruelty to Animals", doesn't appear on vinyl and audio cassette versions.
* The song "Coconuts" was used as the title track for the movie ''Much Ice Crew's Coconuts'' (1989).
Personnel
Musicians
* Adrian Belew – vocals, guitars, piano, bass guitar, drums, percussion, additional instrumentation
* Mike Barnett –
string bass (tracks 2, 11)
* Audie Belew – vocal ("Oh Daddy")
Technical
* Adrian Belew –
producer
Producer or producers may refer to:
Occupations
*Producer (agriculture), a farm operator
*A stakeholder of economic production
*Film producer, supervises the making of films
**Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...
* Rich Denhart –
engineer
Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the l ...
* Dan Harjung – assistant engineer
* Adrian (Sotto Vocé) – cover design
* Sandy Ostroff –
photography
Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...
* Stan Hertzman – photography
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mister Music Head
Adrian Belew albums
1989 albums
Albums produced by Adrian Belew
Atlantic Records albums