The full title of the fourth Sam Phillips album is Omnipop (It’s Only A Flesh Wound Lambchop) that evokes daffiness, absurdity, and obscure pop culture references. While that may sound like fun, Omnipop is all over the place. I consider it a serious misfire, especially coming off the relative success of Martinis And Bikinis. Returning to the Beatles analogy, Martinis = Revolver and Omnipop = Magical Mystery Tour.

That said, there are two tracks among best Sam ever recorded, Zero Zero Zero and Power World.

Entertainmen

= 2 stars

The best part of this meandering tune is the post-chorus lyric “Watch me, let me be your TV.” All else comes across as a pale U2 imitation. Its subject matter seems to refer to Sam’s small role in the Bruce Willis action flick Die Hard: With A Vengance.

Plastic Is Forever

= 1 star

Squishy electric guitars and some squeaky saxophones. It sort of works, but ultimately… no.

Animals On Wheels

= 3 stars

Good tune with lyrics reminiscent of Cruel Inventions. Dislike the circus production.

Zero Zero Zero!

= 5 stars

Brilliant, near instrumental, with a daffy beat and retro instrumentation, plus some Herb Alpert style trumpets contributing the chorus melody. It’s so strong no words are necessary.

Help Yourself

= 1 star

Muted trumpets, loungy guitar, and xylophone combine to form a demented James Bond theme.

Your Hands

= 1 star

Overlong, atmospheric, meandering dirge whose only strong point is the contrast it provides for the next song.

Power World

= 5 stars

Power pop perfection. The chorus ends on a huge hook — “our ideas of perfect are so imperfect.” What pushes the song over the top is the guitar solo that storms in as if transmitted from a mountain via laser beam (2:31). George Harrison would be proud.

(Skeleton)

= 1 star

A noisy, toss-away instrumental that is the equivalent of the Beatles’ Flying.

Where Are You Taking Me

= 2 stars

All there is to recommend is a relentless repeating of the song title, Beatles’ I Want You style — unfortunately to much less effect.

Compulsive Gambler

= 1 star

I don’t get this one either.

Faster Pussycat To The Library

= 2 stars

Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill! Kill! is a Russ Rymer cult movie about macho biker chicks. This song doesn’t evoke this.

Slapstick Heart

= 3 stars

Decent tune based on a loop contributed by R.E.M.

Intra-Album-Rank-O-Rama: 2.25

Next Album: Fan Dance
Previous Album: Martinis And Bikinis

The third Sam Phillips album is an amazing tour de force with one clear influence: The Beatles — although mostly John and George with Paul focusing on inventive bass lines. However, Sam’s lyrics are better than most Beatles’ songs, with a clearer world view advocating love and honesty with one’s self over the materialist, soul-corroding trappings of modern society.

Notable musicians are percussionist Marc Ribot, Mickey Curry, Jerry Scheff, and Colin Moulding (XTC).

Love & Kisses

= 5 stars

Harpsichord and vocals, with subtle electric guitar when the song moves into major. Great album opener. The instrumentation is similar to the album opener from The Indescribable Wow.

Signposts

= 5 stars

Very Revolver drums and choppy guitar. The chorus crashes into existence, and has a brief move to a major seven chord. The “ahs” after the chorus sound piped in fromTomorrow Never Knows. Also stunning is the Colin Moulding counter-melody in the bass. The song is very short, just two verses and choruses, and almost could be taken as a continuation of the first song.

Same Rain

= 5 stars

Those seductive “ahs” return as an intro. Same instrumentation, but the song structure is more complete. Definite nods to Beatles’ song of the same name, with some guitar lifted from The Inner Light. But the extra sauce that pushes the song over the edge is yet another stunning Moulding bass line that changes with every verse — his groove on the last verse is especially spectacular. Such inventive bass melodies are a trait of the Beatles’ Something or again, Rain.

The lyrics discuss how the same rain falls on everyone, a vision of equality similar to Lennon’s solo work.

Baby I Can’t Please You

= 4 stars

This tune is the first with an actual bridge. I think the production is a little cluttered, and the eastern metaphor is taken a bit too far. It’s sonically similar to Sam’s earlier song Holding On To The Earth. Still, someone thought it good enough to include on the Melrose Place soundtrack (!).

Circle Of Fire

= 3 stars

The pulsing guitar recalls Lennon’s solo work, in particular Cold Turkey.

Strawberry Road

= 4 stars

Lyrical reference to Strawberry Fields Forever, but more a listing of life lessons than nostalgia. The strawberry road seems to be a place of acceptance that we may not achieve our dreams in this lifetime. Appropriately Beatle-y background vocals.

When I Fall

= 4 stars

The chord progression is reminiscent of the Beatles’ Help! period, more specifically Eight Day’s A Week. The lead guitar mimics the vocal melody, which is symmetrical in its rise and fall. During the chorus, the chords move upward as if to catch the “falling” vocal.

Same Changes

= 3 stars

Not as much a fan of this one as the stompy sound reminds me of one of XTC’s lesser tracks, War Dance. But the chorus is tops, and the lyrics point out the usual suspects.

Black Sky

= 4 stars

Another song with a not so great verse, but a great chorus featuring hooky “la la las.” Sam explores some similarly killer “la la las” on future albums. The lyrics depict an apocalypse that humankind brings upon itself. The last verse where the percussion drops out is quite divine.

Fighting With Fire

= 3 stars

A bit too country and incessant for my taste. My favorite part is tellingly, the last few chords.

I Need Love

= 5 stars

Perfection, like a Rubber Soul / Revolver outtake, with Help! style background vocals. Actually, the guitar lick sounds like If I Needed Someone.

This gothic, Bergman / Lang video is totally not what I imagined however…

Wheel Of The Broken Voice

= 3 stars

Some very impressive rockabilly guitar playing near the end.

Gimme Some Truth

= 2 stars

A thematically approrpriate John Lennon cover, considering the album’s themes and sonic mimicry, but I’m not sure about the heavy reverb and strange, electronic percussion. I find it rather unnecessary.

Intra-Album-Rank-O-Rama: 3.84

Next Album: Omnipop
Previous Album: Cruel Inventions

iTunes Store Link: Martinis and Bikinis — Sam Phillips

Cruel Inventions finds Sam exploring an experimental, adventurous sound combined with focused, direct lyrics. Besides “love and loss” Sam delves into socially conscious subject matter with abstract, evocative imagery. It’s a progression from the previous Indescribable Wow.

Lying

= 5 stars

Supported by reverb-heavy percussion and distorted guitar, the verses lists optimistic phrases while the chorus contains one line: “I’d be lying” — direct and effective. The bridge is backed by strings, which return weeping in the last verse. Stunning stuff, and an improvement on the first album from the opening track.

Go Down

= 4 stars

Take Flame from the first album with lyrics documenting the corrosive values of modernity: “death for profit,” “silence of money.” The answer proposed lies within ourselves and human connection. As with the first track, the chorus contains just one phrase: “go down.” Also features a frentic acoustic guitar solo contributed by Elvis Costello.

Cruel Inventions

= 5 stars

The modern world kills people’s dreams through “elevators with music like magazines.” The pulsing guitar line evokes a spinning wheel in a machine, relentlessly churning out product. The second verse starts with the “beat generation” selling out by getting on the “morning train,” set Strawberry Fields Forever mellotron. The song poses the worthwhile question of what we lose through relentless technological progress.

Standing Still

= 3 stars

A litany of abstract dream imagery, a bit wayward compared to the preceding directness. There are some great layers of guitar and background vocals, however.

Tripping Over Gravity

= 3 stars

Almost nonsense lyrics chosen more for their sound than meaning, documenting alienating aspects of modern society: “neon lights flashing rights on concrete lace.” My favorite aspect is the interval-leaping bass providing a counter melody for the rather relentlessly horizontal nature of this slightly overlong song.

Now I Can’t Find The Door

= 3 stars

The twangy country guitar and beat, plus drums saved for the chorus, is reminiscent of the previous album. The bridge is a tad awkward. Well, the outro resembles the Smiths.

Private Storm

= 2 stars

Not a fan of this track, although the 6/8 time and meandering bass are rather Beatle-y. The best part is the chorus of Sam vocals that cascade in near the halfway point.

Raised On Promises

= 3 stars

Boy, that’s a lot of reverb on one hand clap. Otherwise, an upbeat and straight ahead pop rock tune.

Hole In Time

= 3 stars

A Herb Alpert or Burt Bacharach trumpet.

Where The Colors Don’t Go

= 5 stars

A perfect album closer, with obvious musical influences — in particular a chirpy Penny Lane trumpet. The colors could be the literal one of a rainbow but also a hint of a segregation past. The homogenization of a globalized world is mentioned with “one shopping bag and restaurant.” A great preview of the excellent subsequent album, Martinis And Bikinis.

Intra-Album-Rank-O-Rama: 3.6

Next Album: Martinis And Bikinis
Previous Album: The Indescribable Wow

iTunes Store Link: Cruel Inventions — Sam Phillips

Sam Phillips — or “the artist formerly known as Leslie Phillips” — recorded as a Christian music artist until recording The Turning with the producer T-Bone Burnett. In 1988 she left Christian music behind, signed with Virgin, and adopted the moniker “Sam Phillips.”

The first Sam Phillips album The Indescribable Wow deals with expected subject matter for a first outing: love, loss, and a bit of abstract dream imagery sprinkled about. The retro sound recalls the fifties and sixties, more specifically Roy Orbison, the Beatles, and Motown. Most distinctive is the use of harpsichord and a tad much reverb in the production by T Bone Burnett.

I Don’t Want To Fall In Love

= 4 stars

Harpsichord, hand claps, and bass. No drums until the chorus, which is in relative minor to echo the negative  sentiment of the title. Unfortunately there’s no bridge or instrumental solo, just some backwards guitars in the outro. The track as a whole is a very simple, yet catchy first track.

I Don’t Know How To Say Goodbye To You

= 5 stars

Happy, upbeat, almost Phil Spector girl group sound, complete with background vocals that really shine during the middle eight. Some Rubber Soul era guitar pokes about. Vocal wise, Sam engages in some odd Cyndy Lauper style hollering, which she’ll thankfully abandon on the next album.

Flame

= 3 stars

More representative of Sam’s work as a whole: a mellow ballad using mostly acoustic instruments. It’s a little like And I Love Her with a minor chord change borrowed from Elvis Costello’s Jack Of All Parades, on which T Bone Burnett was producer.

The bridge is good, taking the song to a new place yet still feeling appropriate. Lyrically, a flame of passion illuminates the dark but also has a mesmerizing effect. Sam plays the part of a moth drawn toward the light.

Remorse

= 3 stars

The part of the verse leading into the chorus is a little too hectic for my taste. The chorus is great, returning to the harpsichord and background vocals that smooth everything over. But ultimately, a wandering bridge and instrumental, country-esque twangy guitar thing that goes on a little too long, hamper the track.

What Do I Do

= 5 stars

Simply stunning: just a string quartet and a chorus of Sam vocals. The ornamentation and overlapping vocal lines bring to life the aching sentiment of the lyrics, as if the various lines are competing to attract a someone’s affection. The song’s final moments feature some sparkling, sharp accents coming from the strings.

I Can’t Stop Crying

= 4 stars

Similar instrumentation to the album opener, with harpsichord and drums saved for the chorus, but the verse is in minor while the chorus is in relative major. A bit reminiscent of Roy Orbison’s masterpiece Crying.

Holding On To The Earth

= 3 stars

This song with “sitar” like guitar and chimy organ resembles Strawberry Alarm Clock’s Incense and Peppermints but without that song’s bubble gum pop perfection. Lyrically, it’s a combination of dream imagery and a suggestion to not hold onto the material world before death, a  theme Sam tackles better on future albums. It’s a bit beyond me why this tune was selected as a single.

She Can’t Tell Time

= 4 stars

Like an out-take from A Hard Day’s Night, with a rather askew chord progression juxtaposing major and minor in odd places. The chorus references to “sleep” recall I’m Only Sleeping, complete with backwards guitar solo.

What You Don’t Want To Hear

= 4 stars

Return to the girl group sound, but the chorus is a bit too simple and therefore slightly unsuccessful. The bridge is also rather weak. It’s rather amusing that the album’s happiest sounding song is the most negative lyrically — it’s a break up tune.

Out Of Time

= 3 stars

Great guitar lick. The verse melody and drums recalls Roy Orbison’s Only The Lonely. The lyrics mention “time” and leaving a lover behind, making it a strange amalgam of the previous two tracks.

Intra-Album-Rank-O-Rama: 3.8

Next Album: Cruel Inventions

iTunes Store Link: The Indescribable Wow — Sam Phillips