Album Review — Cherie Currie & Brie Darling
Cherie Currie & Brie Darling — The Motivator
Two of rock’s leading women from the 1970s have joined forces. Cherie Currie (Runaways) and Brie Darling (Fanny) were two of the bigger names on the Los Angeles music scene in the 70s, but they didn’t meet until 2017. They have united to release “The Motivator”, a collection of nine cover songs and three original tracks.
All of the cover songs are from the late 60s/early 70s era, which quite honestly is a little before my time. Some of these songs are familiar while other are less so. For most of the tracks, the duo decided to share vocals. On some tracks, such as “Get Together”, it works well while on others I would have preferred one or the other to take the lead.
I like what the duo has done on a couple of the arrangements. The aforementioned “Get Together” has a little more to it than the original which I like. On others, such as the Stones’ classic, “Gimme Shelter”, they stick to the original pretty closely.
The first new track, “This Is Our Time”, has a very 80s Cars feel to it. Curie and Darling take turns on the verses. It’s a good song and a bit of a departure from the cover songs.
“Too Bruised” starts with some orchestration and has a slower bluesy feel to it. It’s an interesting change of pace and one of my favorites on the record.
“I’m Too Good, That’s Just Too Bad” is the final original song. T-Rex sounding guitar starts off the track and Currie takes on most of the lead vocals here. That’s three very different sounding originals which makes me hopeful for a full release in the future.
There are some interesting cover song choices as the majority are relatively well known but not worn out (at least for me). The original tracks show some musical diversity which makes things a little more interesting.
For a mostly covers record, I like it. And we get a glimpse of what an album of original material could sound like and it’s promising.
80 out of 100
Track Listing
1.The Motivator (T-Rex)
2.Gimme Shelter (Rolling Stones)*
3.Gimme Some Truth (John Lennon)
4.Do It Again (Kinks)
5.Get Together (Youngbloods) *
6.He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother (The Hollies)
7.This Is Our Time *
8.Too Bruised *
9.I’m Too Good, That’s Just Too Bad
10.Something In The Air (Thunderclap Newman)
11.For What It’s Worth (Buffalo Springfield)
12.Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder)
*Best Songs