One record at a time: 454. Jon and Vangelis - Private Collection

Having achieved commercial success with their two previous albums, Jon Anderson and Vangelis decided to team up again and release "Private Collection". Here I will be listening to what Discogs says is an original UK pressing, but as the sleeve has references to a compact disc version, I am not convinced it is from 1983.

Opening track "Italian Song" has a wonderful melody and as Anderson translated his nonsense lyrics into Italian they are much more digestible. "And When the Night Comes" is a good track right up until the point Anderson starts trying to tell us, "A woman needs to feel alive, a woman needs her sex". Even if I judge these lyrics in historical context I still can't digest such sexist nonsense. 

Whilst the music on "Deborah" is pretty strong Anderson rather lets things down with his clumsy lyrics. Only "He Is Saling" comes up to the mark with its vocoder tinged vocals and superlative CS-80 bass. The final track "Horizon" is a very odd one. Imagine twenty two minutes of fairly tuneless synths and Andersons insistent vocals drifting along with no real purpose and you get an idea of just how boring this piece is. I'm glad when it is all over. Any marks here are for "Italian Song" and "He Is Sailing", everything else in this collection was probably best kept private. 2/5