American IV: The Man Comes Around Overview
UK special edition reissue of The Man In Black's brilliant 2002 album includes two bonus tracks, 'Big Iron' (previously vinyl only) & 'Hurt' (video). American Recordings. 2003.
American IV: The Man Comes Around Specifications
On first thought, the idea of the Man in Black recording such covers as "Bridge over Troubled Water," "Danny Boy," and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" might seem odd, even for an artist who's been able to put his personal stamp on just about everything. But
American IV: The Man Comes Around, which also draws on Cash's original songs as well as those by Nine Inch Nails ("Hurt"), Sting ("I Hung My Head"), and Depeche Mode ("Personal Jesus"), may be one of the most autobiographical albums of the 70-year-old singer-songwriter's career. Nearly every tune seems chosen to afford the ailing giant of popular music a chance to reflect on his life, and look ahead to what's around the corner. From the opening track--Cash's own "The Man Comes Around," filled with frightening images of Armageddon--the album, produced by Rick Rubin, advances a quiet power and pathos, built around spare arrangements and unflinching honesty in performance and subject. In 15 songs, Cash moves through dark, haunted meditations on death and destruction, poignant farewells, testaments to everlasting love, and hopeful salutes to redemption. He sounds as if he means every word, his baritone-bass, frequently frayed and ravaged, taking on a weary beauty. By the time he gets to the Beatles' "In My Life," you'll very nearly cry. Go ahead. He sounds as if he's about to, too. Unforgettable.
--Alanna Nash
Customer Reviews
There is no doubt that "American IV: The Man Comes Around" is a great job, and many great art, asks more questions than answers. This also applies to Johnny Cash. This makes him a great man?
It seems likely - I can not for many other artists in all styles, one of their best works written in old age, but this is exactly what cash is to think with the title track, "The Man Comes Around." This song sets the tone in a variety of opportunities forRest of the album - sounds like a sermon, but rather as an attempt to explain the spiritual world, is more like an attempt to fathom it. In his liner notes, Cash has confirmed that get a lot of these images from the book of Revelation, but there are less than descriptive review has been filed and the item Cash is less numb to triumph.
Sure, he had good reason to be surprised by this. Who would have thought that Johnny Cash was not only the host Member State hasfor hip-hop king Rick Rubin at the time of his life, but would like a crush around him four times to do it? This may explain his decision known, some incredible songs record out-of-characters of this set.
It included a few originals, including his old standard "Give My Love Rose 'and some traditional classics such as" Streets of Laredo "but this album is more attention to Nine Inch Nails'" Hurt "and Depeche Mode" Personal Jesus. When you hearto the original versions of these figures, we must ask what has the man in black, to make a couple of synth melodies, with hints of all things industrial.
Before joining this, I speak a little 'the rest of the album, because I think those two pieces actually fit pretty well. Cash has always been interested in the tip of human experience - all you need do is listen to include "Ring of Fire" and of course, knows that thisLaughter all leavened with a passion and ecstasy to despair and death, often with a healthy portion. "American IV" is somehow the ideal of this approach to music, and the accompanying strips down issues in high relief.
Cash's voice adds a lot, too. It 's always been a devastating instrument of nature that could lead to the cave walls of the temple, but let's face it - in 2002, was the man in his late 60s and suffers from a soundChronic condition of blood, and his voice had worn a lot. It seems less like God's voice as the voice of a very stubborn man, this is exactly what needs most of this music. (I must admit that adding some guest singers not much - Rubin have done better to leave out.)
Thus, these melodies, their system over the whole range of emotional map. They are full of love, death, despair, cynicism and joy. It is also eternal themes synth bandGripper with, so why not their material?
There are those who sound bar "Hurt" and "Personal Jesus" as old ballads tell the country, but I disagree. You sound like Johnny Cash songs, all right, but the arrangements are a bit 'too modern approaches to sound something like the Carter Family. Cash shot "Hurt" (Nine Inch Nails, which was as jarring murmur of anger and pain) in an application for hope, and turns "Personal Jesus" (Depeche Mode, as recordedAttack on televangelist with a shuffle beat) in a gospel tune on the straight 4.4 Time. We used to think that this age of the world not to believe everything, but the Cash version of the old music hall number, "Sam Hall" is much more cynical than one of these modern figures, and more fun. Clearly, in this age of the world is not as materialistic as we thought. Johnny Cash Trust to find all people of faith in the music industry and people who do.
ThisCash almost like he knew he could not get another chance to sing for us and decided that is not in things, but it seems solid - battery appears on one cut ("Tear Stained Letter" and the boy I had decided Song by Richard Thompson with the same record name) is not the guitar or bass in general, and producers had to bring the good feeling in a couple of Heartbreakers by Tom Petty, just to be sure that things were tasty.
But it's Johnny Cash Show, and aphenomenal rise of the curtain. His wife died in June shortly after the "American IV: The Man Around were" around, and Johnny does not take much longer. I can imagine that he now has answers to questions raised by this album. The rest of us are left with questions, but it is not a bad thing, especially if in a form in which this could happen.
Benshlomo says: When the old is a question that we would do well to listen.
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