Steve Taylor
Has The Size of The Road Got The Better of You?
© 2008 Steve Taylor (798463749528)
CD IN STOCK. ORDER NOW. Will ship immediately.
SPECIAL: 20% discount if you buy more than one copy of it today!
Beautiful California folk soul music, with classic sounding melodies, introspective lyrics, and Beatle-esque analog production, sounds like it's from Laurel Canyon.
tracks
try this
genres you will love
By Location
Recommended if you like ...
notes
Steve Taylor is an Oakland, CA based singer songwriter multi-instrumentalist. After watching peers and collaborators go on to join the likes of Deathcab for Cutie and Taking Back Sunday, Steve is poised to make a significant mark on the scene with his first full length record "Has the Size of the Road Got the Better of You?" which he debuted on February 10th, 2008 at Cafe DuNord in San Francisco. A song cycle about being lost and found on the road of life, it was recorded over the last 3 and a half years, amidst an array of trials and tribulation. Playing with a passion and honesty that's lost on most contemporary artists, Steve merges the heart-on-your-sleeve confessional style of Joni Mitchell, the northern soul of Van Morrison, and the pop hooks of T-Rex, and filters them through a progrock lense, creating a soundscape that's both modern and unironically influenced by 70's AM rock. If he was alive in 1972, he would have been in Laurel Canyon joining James Taylor, Crosby Stills, and Nash, and The Eagles in spearheading the psychedelic country rock sound that ruled the airwaves for most of the decade. Playing nearly all of the instruments, including a palette of pre 1980 synths, electric pianos and organs, Steve also asked friends Marco Benevento and Joe Russo, aka The Benevento Russo Organ and Drums Duo from NYC, to take part. If you like Neil Young, My Morning Jacket, The Band, Dr. Dog, or The Shins, you will like this album.
P.S. After the arduous and inadvertently long labor process of this album, and the backlog of songs it has created, Steve has decided to post one new song per week for the entire year on www.myspace.com/stevetaylorband. Check back for everything from acoustic demos to full on rock&roll renditions from the next album!
reviews
Please log in to review this album.
a unique talent
author: George BereschikIn the material I've read regarding Steve Taylor and this CD, he is compared to Joni Mitchell and Van Morrison (among others). I'll agree with that and add that various songs remind me also of Erasure (without the electro pop synth, of course), Aaron Neville, Lee Michaels, Hall and Oates, Carol King, and particularly the Alan Parsons Project. Don't be mislead by the comparisons, though, because I think Steve Taylor is a unique talent. The bouncy, melodic, harmonious opening number, "Reality" belies a message. "Felicity" is a great "teen anguish" song that would have been at home in the 60s. If you like the Alan Parsons project, you'll like "Aquafish" with its lovely chord building refrain. The title track, "Has the Size of the Road Got the Better of You" is sparse and beautifully folk-like. The next track has me baffled. "Nothing Left" sounds so familiar somehow, but I can't put my finger on it. A bit bluesy, a bit jazzy, a bit Joe Cocker or Eagles, even a bit Broadway somehow. I've listened to this one over and over - it's haunting. The lyrics of "Mystery" evoke the best of Simon and Garfunkel, while musically I'm thinking Alan Parsons again. Is "River" the one that reminds people of Joni Mitchell? ("I Wish I Had a River I Could Skate Away On"?) To me it's lyricism and piano work are more akin to Carol King. The final track, "One More for the Road" is a mellow soft-rocker in the tradition of Dan Fogelberg or Michael Murphy. So, there's my subjective and brief recap. I'll just add that I love the CD - I've listened to it numerous times since it arrived, and I'm looking forward to Steve' next release.