Sebastian

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Has there ever been a more pompous, overblown, puffed-up monstrosity than Steve Harley + Cockney Rebel's 'Sebastian'? I stumbled across this on The Best Glam Album in The World and I've played it repeatedly since. It's just so damn funny!

I love SH + CR, but they were virtually always a hair's breadth away from complete bollocks, and this is surely it. This makes Meat Loaf sound like The Steve Gibbons Band, it's so overdone. The lyrics - "Your view of society screws up my mind like you'll never know" - holy shit. The arrangement - just when the pompometer is moving into the red the massed choir come in and for the third chorus and send it off scale.

Best bit by far, and I can hardly keep a straight face when just thinking about it, is towards the end where Steve starts to sing in a sort of madrigal style "loy, loy loydiddly-oy" or something. It's priceless.

So what do you think?

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And the fact that it was made by a band called COCKNEY REBEL. The name Cockney Rebel suggests third on the bill to The Kursaal Flyers and The Mickey Jupp band at a pub in Dagenham. Pub Rock!

― Dr. C, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I prefer the bizarre wind-the-gramophone-up intro to "All Because Of You" by Geordie and the fact that said song seems to be an aesthetic staging post between the Dave Clark Five and (obviously) AC/DC.

― Marcello Carlin, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cockney Rebel were always pretty bad but I do have a liking for most of the songs I've re-heard recently including Sebastian. However, Harley's vocals are probably the most affected of all the glam people - even more overblown than Bowie and more ridiculously vibratoed than Ferry.

― philT, Wednesday, 27 February 2002 01:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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