| Paris 1919 | |
| Type: | studio |
| Artist: | John Cale |
| Cover: | JohnCaleParis1919.jpg |
| Border: | yes |
| Recorded: | 1972–1973 |
| Studio: | Sunwest (Los Angeles) |
| Genre: | |
| Label: | Reprise |
| Producer: | Chris Thomas |
| Prev Title: | The Academy in Peril |
| Prev Year: | 1972 |
| Next Title: | June 1, 1974 |
| Next Year: | 1974 |
Paris 1919 is the third solo studio album by the Welsh musician John Cale, released on 25 February 1973 by Reprise Records. Musicians such as Lowell George and Wilton Felder performed on the release. It was produced by Chris Thomas, who had previously worked producing Procol Harum.
In contrast to the experimental nature of much of John Cale's work before and after Paris 1919, the album is noted for its orchestral-influenced style, reminiscent of contemporary pop rock music. Its title is a reference to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, and song contents explore various aspects of early 20th century Western Europe culture and history.
The album has received critical praise from several publications over the years, including AllMusic and Rolling Stone. It was reissued on 19 June 2006 by Rhino Records.
Paris 1919 was recorded in 1972 and 1973 with producer Chris Thomas. Cale explained in a 1973 interview that he had employed Thomas to help add objectivity to the recording process.[4] In the same interview he also mentioned that the album featured members of Little Feat: although musician credits were never included on the album's original packaging, the 2006 Rhino expanded CD edition credited Little Feat members Lowell George on guitar and Richie Hayward on drums, and Wilton Felder of the Crusaders on bass guitar, as well as orchestration provided by the UCLA Symphony Orchestra.[5]
AllMusic considers it the most accessible and traditional of Cale's albums, and the best-known of his work as a solo artist.
Paris 1919 takes its influences from pop and rock artists such as Brian Wilson, the Bee Gees, and Procol Harum, particular the latter band's popular 1972 live album Live in Concert with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra.[5] Cale stated that some of the songs on the album dated back to before the release of his solo debut Vintage Violence (1970). Lyrically, Cale recalls possible childhood memories in "Child's Christmas in Wales", whose title is a reference to a prose poem by Dylan Thomas and a reference to Thomas' poem "The Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait" in its second verse. "Half Past France" features "soldiers already dead talking about what's happened", while "Graham Greene" is about "the end of civilization, I guess". As well as Greene, Cale makes cultural and literary references to William Shakespeare's Macbeth (1623), Enoch Powell, Chipping Sodbury, Andalucia, Dunkirk, and Segovia,[5] while "Antarctica Starts Here" is inspired by the 1950 Billy Wilder film Sunset Boulevard starring Gloria Swanson.[6]
The album's title makes reference to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, an event that established a new partitioning of Europe as well as the assignment of unilateral war reparations. With the event having arguably contributed substantially to the rise of the Third Reich and the emergence of World War II, Cale described the record as "an example of the nicest ways of saying something ugly."[5]
Paris 1919 was released to warm critical reception. Rolling Stone writer Stephen Holden deemed it a "masterpiece" and "one of the most ambitious albums ever released under the name of 'pop'". He found that the songwriting "requires a great deal of listening in order for its full implications to be perceived".[7] In Let It Rock, Mick Gold said that "Paris 1919 has more humanity and humour than anything I've previously associated with Cale". Gold wrote that Cale "loves style and chaos in equal quantities and he's never married them better than on this album", and concluded that "John Cale has succeeded in producing an album that is more accessible than his previous work without sacrificing his ability to evoke unvisited planets, and ... he has set his images in music that combines simplicity with subtle detail".[8] Reviewing an import copy of Paris 1919 in Sounds, Martin Hayman noted that the songs were closer to rock music than classical music, and described the record as "a more satisfying collection than the last effort", calling it "a brilliant and indispensible album".[9]
Subsequent positive reviews continued to be published many years later. AllMusic critic Jason Ankeny praised its "richly poetic" songs for functioning as "enigmatic period pieces strongly evocative of their time and place". He also wrote that "there's little here to suggest either Cale's noisy, abrasive past or the chaos about to resurface in his subsequent work", since Cale, according to Ankeny, "for better or worse... never achieved a similar beauty again." Tiny Mix Tapes remarked that "Cale slyly crafted a brilliant achievement in Paris 1919 by utilizing a mournful gentility to catch his original target audience unaware and hiding in plain sight."[10] In 2010, Los Angeles Times critic Matt Diehl called Paris 1919 "the idiosyncratic pinnacle to Cale's thrilling yet perverse career, despite the fact it never topped the charts".[11]
Paris 1919 received a full reissue on 19 June 2006 by Rhino Records UK. The revamped version features the original album remastered, in addition to the outtake "Burned Out Affair", alternate and rehearsal versions of every song on the album, a hidden, unlisted instrumental version of "Macbeth", and the sound effects of the chirping birds found in the title track. Pitchfork gave the reissue a 9.5 out of 10 rating.
Cale has performed Paris 1919 live in its entirety throughout the world, beginning in Cardiff on 21 November 2009, with his regular band and a 19-piece orchestra, with new orchestral arrangements by Cale and composer Randall Woolf. The show was staged again in 2010 in London, Norwich, Paris, Brescia, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, then in 2011 in Barcelona, Essen, and Malmö, as well as two shows in New York City in January 2013.[12] [13] [14]
The Wire included Paris 1919 in its list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)".[15] In 2016, Uncut ranked Paris 1919 at number 99 in its list of the 200 greatest albums of all time.[16] The album was also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005).[17]
Songs from Paris 1919 have been covered by such notable musicians as Yo La Tengo, Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield, Owen Pallett, David Soldier and the Soldier String Quartet, Love and Rockets' David J, Okkervil River, Jay Bennett and Edward Burch, and Sally Timms.[18]
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