Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Trump Biden Coverage DBL Standard

The Double Standard in Trump-Biden Coverage

Biden vows to beat Trump

•The Atlantic / by Tom Nichols / Jul 9, 2024 at 2:54 AM

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After President Joe Biden’s disastrous recent public appearances, he and his supporters are attacking media outlets for a double standard in coverage of him and his opponent. They’re right, but that double standard is structural and, unfortunately, will not end during this campaign.

First, here are three new stories from The Atlantic:

Shooting the Messengers

This morning, Biden released a letter he sent to his Democratic colleagues, in which he threw punches in multiple directions at those suggesting that he step down: “press,” “pundits,” “big donors,” and a “selected group of individuals.” (You could almost hear the part he didn’t say: selected individuals, especially certain Democrats on the Hill.) He later called the MSNBC talk show Morning Joe to make many of the same points.

The president’s crisis is of his own making. Biden is clearly no longer up to any kind of prolonged extemporizing, but his campaign gambled first on a debate and then on a hastily arranged interview, both of which went badly. Many of Biden’s supporters are blaming members of the media for a pile-on of negative coverage, but there is no planet on which Biden’s behavior isn’t a major and continuing news story.

If I may paraphrase a line from Midnight Run, one of my favorite movies: Mr. President, you’re in this mess because you’re in this mess. The media didn’t put you in this mess.

But critics of recent media coverage of Biden are dead right about one thing: Many outlets have for years been employing a significant double standard in covering Biden and his opponent, Donald Trump. When Biden stumbles over words, we question his state of mind; when Trump acts like a deranged street preacher, it’s … well, Tuesday. If Biden had suggested setting up migrants in a fight club, he’d be out of the race already; Trump does it, and the country (as well as many in the media) shrugs. Recognizing this inequity is the easy part, but here’s the harder realization: The double standard is a structural problem, it won’t change, and everyone in the prodemocracy coalition needs to grit their teeth and accept that reality.

The structural issue is that in an open society, almost all views may be expressed in the public square—even outright falsehoods. This principle of liberal democracy leaves Trump free to lie and propagandize, which he and his footmen do confidently and effortlessly. These tactics have been highly effective among a GOP base whose senses have been pounded into numbness by relentless propaganda, a daily barrage of Bullshit Artillery that leaves a smoking, pockmarked no-man’s-land in the mind of almost anyone subjected to it for long enough.

Media outlets cannot counter this by responding with a similar “truth barrage,” in part because there are simply not enough hours in the day. But it is also inaccurate to say that media outlets have not recently tried to cover Trump’s bizarre behavior. The NYU professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who regularly warns about Trump’s fascistic plans, posted in frustration yesterday that the top stories in several national publications were all about Biden, and not about “Trump and Epstein, Trump and Putin, Trump telling us to inject bleach, Trump wanting to deport up to 20 million.” (If you’re looking for in-depth reporting about the unique threats Trump poses to American democracy, I suggest revisiting the special package in our January/February issue, “If Trump Wins.”)

In fact, all of those stories have been reported on—extensively—including Trump’s interactions with Jeffrey Epstein, who was accused of several sex crimes in 2019 but died before he went to trial. (It’s also worth noting that credible news outlets rarely treat a single deposition as adequate sourcing for incendiary accusations against any individual.) And the press would appear hopelessly partisan if it included a sidebar in every story about Biden that said “Joe Biden was incoherent today in a debate, but by the way: Trump and Putin,” or “Democrats are raising doubts about Biden’s candidacy, but remember: Back in 2020, Trump raised the idea that COVID might be treated by injecting people with disinfectants.”

People who support democracy should think hard if they believe that the right model for a free press is, in essence, to take its assignments from political parties and their supporters and repeat stories just to balance bad news from the other side. Members of the media can take on would-be dictators (and have throughout history), and defend the American tradition of press freedom, without becoming openly partisan.

Some of Biden’s supporters argue that the problem is an imbalance in quantity, pointing to the avalanche of coverage of Biden over the past couple of weeks. But they are less willing to accept that Biden has for many years gotten plenty of sympathetic coverage from a press that, until now, mostly gave him the benefit of the doubt about his age and competence. Media outlets are covering Biden as they would any accountable politician whose campaign has not been honest with the public—which means things are as they should be. In fact, the shock of the debate suggests that the media’s present focus on Biden’s cognition is not misplaced but overdue.

The real double-standard problem is not about coverage, but about interpretation. This is not “bias” in the political sense. It is, as Atlantic editor in chief Jeffrey Goldberg put it, a bias toward coherence, the inability to accept—and say—that one of the presidential campaigns is completely bonkers. “Trump overwhelms us with nonsense,” Jeff notes, and so, when confronted with Trump’s obvious mental instability, we work backwards: “Trump sounds nuts, but he can’t be nuts, because he’s the presumptive nominee for president of a major party, and no major party would nominate someone who is nuts.”

The result of this bias is that the press too often continues to present what should be appalling, even horrifying information as if it is just part of the normal give-and-take of a political campaign: Trump goes to Las Vegas and rants about sharks, and the press, likely trying to appear unbiased, instead pulls out a dull nugget about Trump’s mention of not taxing tips. Trump vows to destroy the American civil service, and the headlines talk about his “plans to increase presidential power.”

Why? Because it is not in the American journalistic tradition to say: Today in Las Vegas, one of the two major candidates said things so rabidly toxic and incoherent that they raised doubts about his sanity.

Media outlets should stop embracing the bias toward coherence; this is now a struggle between a free press and a would-be dictator. But people cannot expect journalists to provide a daily flood of truths about Trump—and they are sorely needed—while also ignoring grave questions about Biden’s presidential fitness. A free and honest press committed to the truth doesn’t work that way.

I am not counseling defeatism. Rather, I am counseling focus and perseverance. Trump’s allies would love for major news outlets to call on him to drop out: They’d reprint it and fundraise off it. Instead, the media should report on Trump’s behavior and emphasize that American candidates—and normal people—do not refer to their fellow citizens as “vermin” or muse about having them prosecuted by military tribunals. A steady recounting of Trump’s ravings and his hideous plans is important—not because it is political, but because it is true, and the public needs to know about all of it.

Setting up a defensive perimeter around Biden won’t change the fact that Trump stands at the head of a cult completely sealed in its own information bubble. Americans, including those who work in the media, can walk and chew gum; we can see that Biden’s campaign is in crisis and also recognize that Trump is a dangerous autocrat. Many Americans are sophisticated enough to discuss multiple worrisome issues, but a fair number refuse to pay attention to politics at all. They don’t like hard-edged partisanship. They are also put off by relentless bombast (one of my core skills, unfortunately). They are especially not interested in abstract debates over fascism. I remain convinced, however, that seeing a fascist every day, along with a reminder that this is not the American way, will have an effect on them. Indeed, understanding that Trump is an unhinged menace is what makes Biden’s future such a crucial story for all of us.

Related:

Today’s News

Hurricane Beryl made landfall in Texas, knocking out power for millions and producing at least three tornadoes near the Texas-Louisiana border.
In a letter to Democratic lawmakers, President Biden said that he is “firmly committed to staying in this race.”
France’s snap election yesterday resulted in a deadlocked legislature and Marine Le Pen’s far-right party coming in third place. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, whose party no longer has a majority in the Parliament, submitted his resignation last night, which President Emmanuel Macron has refused to accept for now.

Dispatches

The Wonder Reader: What is a healthy level of sun exposure? Figuring out your personal relationship with sunshine can get complicated, Isabel Fattal writes.

Explore all of our newsletters here.

Evening Read

An emergency alert that reads, "Take cover immediately if threatening weather approaches," set against an orange background — Illustration by The Atlantic. Source: Suparna Hazra / Getty.

The Climate Is Falling Apart. Prepare for the Push Alerts.

By Zoë Schlanger

Last July, I was living in Montreal when an emergency push alert from Canada’s environmental agency popped up on my phone, accompanied by a loud alarm. It had been raining ferociously that afternoon, and the wind was picking up. The alert warned of something worse—a marine tornado, which “are often wrapped in rain and may not be visible”—and ordered, “Take cover immediately if threatening weather approaches.”
I looked outside. The wind was howling louder now, and the sky was a strange gray … This particular tornado spared Montreal, touching down about 30 miles northwest of the city. But the alert worked.

Read the full article.

Thursday, June 20, 2024

50 Terrible fMovies by Great Directors

BOMBS AWAY!

50 Terrible Movies by Great Directors

Cinematic disasters Hollywood's greatest geniuses would love to forget — starring Martin Scorsese, Clint Eastwood, David Fincher, and more

BY ANDY GREENE

MARCH 26, 2024

Photo Illustration by Joe Rodriguez. Paramount/Everett Collection, 9; Universal Pictures/Everett Collection, 5; Buena Vista Pictures/Everett collection, 4.

PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY JOE RODRIGUEZ. PARAMOUNT/EVERETT COLLECTION, 9; UNIVERSAL PICTURES/EVERETT COLLECTION, 5; BUENA VISTA PICTURES/EVERETT COLLECTION, 4.

SHOW US A director who never created at least one genuine turkey of a movie, and we’ll show you a director with an extremely short career. There’s simply too many things that can go wrong once a movie goes into production: The budget can get slashed, filming might start before the script is finalized, key actors could drop out, and the studio could meddle in all sorts of irksome ways.

That’s why titans of cinema like Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielgerg, James Cameron, and Ridley Scott all have at least one movie they wish they could erase from their IMDB page. Some of them were made when they were young novices without any real ability to say no. Some of them were made at the peak of their powers when they made horrid bad decisions out of greed, hubris, or temporary insanity. And many were shot in the waning days of their careers when getting a green light for any project was difficult.

With all this in mind, we assembled this list of 50 truly terrible movies by otherwise brilliant directors. We know some of these will be controversial choices. There are folks out there that truly love Alien 3, Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, and Jupiter Ascending. One moviegoer’s disaster is another moviegoer’s cult classic. But we don’t think there are many hardcore Jack, North, or Wild, Wild West fans out there. These are terrible, terrible movies. If we gave truth serum to Francis Ford Coppola, Rob Reiner, and Barry Sonnenfeld, they’d all likely agree.

‘Renaissance Man’ (Penny Marshall)

In the period between 1988 and 1992, Penny Marshall gifted the world with Big, Awakenings, and A League of Their Own. She could have followed that trio up with virtually any movie she wanted since they were all enormous critical and commercial hits. Sadly, Marshall’s next project was Renaissance Man. It’s a dim-witted comedy about an unemployed ad executive (Danny DeVito) who finds himself teaching cadets on a military training base. They don’t know much about Shakespeare. He doesn’t know much about the military. They learn from each other in an endless series of sitcom cliches. A young Mark Wahlberg raps about Hamlet. All of this is as horrible as you can imagine. “Watching it, I felt embarrassed for the actors, who are asked to inhabit scenes so contrived and artificial that no possible skill could bring them to life,” Roger Ebert wrote. “It’s hard to believe that this is the work of Penny Marshall, whose films like Big and A League of Their Own seemed filled with a breezy confidence.”

‘The Fountain’ (Darren Aronofsky)

WARNER BROS.

It’s slightly unfair to trash The Fountain since the final version is so wildly far off from what director Darren Aronofsky had in mind when work on the film began. The original plan was to place Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett in the lead roles of a $70 million film. When the budget was sliced down to $35 million with Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz as the stars, Aronofsky had to make some drastic cuts that severely compromised his vision. But we can only judge what wound up on the screen, and that’s a film where Jackman plays a Spanish conquistador searching for an eternal life elixir, a modern-day scientist trying to cure his wife’s brain disease, and a 26th-century man traveling through space with a tree. Critics were polarized by the film, but most viewers were simply baffled and bored. “I will concede the film is not a great success,” wrote Roger Ebert. “And yet I believe we have not seen the real film. When a $75 million production goes into turnaround and is made for $35 million, elements get eliminated. When a film telling three stories and spanning thousands of years has a running time of 96 minutes, scenes must have been cut out. There will someday be a director’s cut of this movie, and that’s the cut I want to see.”

‘How Do You Know’ (James L. Brooks)

Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd star in Columbia Pictures' "How Do You Know," also starring Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson.

DAVID JAMES

James L. Brooks spent so much time in television working on shows like The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Taxi, and The Simpsons that he’s only directed six movies. The best of the bunch (Terms of Endearment, Broadcast News, As Good As It Gets) are master classes in storytelling. The middling ones (I’ll Do Anything, Spanglish) reveal his limitations as a writer-director, but they’re still worth watching if you come across them on basic cable. And then there’s his 2010 romantic comedy How Do You Know. It has a wonderful cast led by Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson, and Jack Nicholson in his final film role to date. Witherspoon plays a softball player torn between a cocky baseball player (Wilson) and a charming businessman (Rudd). “Nothing heats up,” Roger Ebert wrote. “The movie doesn’t lead us, it simply stays in step.” It’s a real bummer that Nicholson ended his career on this deeply forgettable rom-com. For a long time, it seemed like it might be the last Brooks movie as well. But he’s assembled Jamie Lee Curtis, Woody Harrelson, Ayo Edebiri, Albert Brooks, Kumail Nanjiani, and Spike Fearn for an upcoming movie he’s calling Ella McCay. Let’s hope it closer in spirit to Terms of Endearment and As Good As It Gets than How Do You Know. That one almost single handedly killed the rom-com.

‘The Truth About Charlie’ (Jonathan Demme)

Mark Wahlberg and Thandie Newton in "The Truth About Charlie"

Remaking a classic movie is always a very risky proposition. There’s always the chance you’ll pull off a miracle like The Birdcage, A Star Is Born, True Grit, or Oceans 11. But odds are much greater you’ll fall way short of the original and get filleted by the critics. The Truth About Charlie is an excellent example. The 2002 Jonthan Demme mystery is a remake of the 1963 Cary Grant/Audrey Hepburn film Charade. It centers around a woman who discovers her husband is dead, millions of dollars are missing, and all sorts of unsavory characters are after her for it. Demme cast Mark Walhberg in the thankless position of replacing Grant. (This is just one year after Wahlberg’s Planet of the Apes fiasco). Thandie Newton did a much better job with the Hepburn part, but there’s no earthly reason for this movie to exist. The original is better in every conceivable way. It earned a paltry $7.1 million on a $60 million budget, and it was the second bomb in a row for Demme after Beloved. But Beloved was a noble failure. The Truth About Charlie was just a regular failure. Demme soldiered on by remaking The Manchurian Candidate as his next movie. But by casting Denzel Washington and Meryl Streep — and not Marky Mark — he actually pulled it off.

‘Look Who’s Talking Too’ (Amy Heckerling)

LOOK WHO'S TALKING TOO, John Travolta, 1990. ©TriStar Pictures/courtesy Everett Collection

©TRISTAR PICTURES/ EVERETT COLLECTION

The original Look Who’s Talking isn’t a bad movie. And when you compare it with every other movie about a talking baby in Hollywood history, it’s basically Citizen Kane. The third movie in the series, Look Who’s Talking Now, frequently appears on lists of the worst movies ever made. That’s the one where the dogs talk. But original Look Who’s Talking director Amy Heckerling didn’t have any involvement with that one. Sadly, she co-wrote and directed 1990’s Look Who’s Talking Too. This quickie sequel came just one year after the original, and it reunites Kirstie Alley, John Travolta, and Bruce Willis as the voice of baby Mikey. Roseanne Barr joined the team this time as the voice of his new baby sister. (Mikey can talk at this point like any toddler, but he somehow still has very adult thoughts. Will the Willis voice ever leave his head? Was he haunted by it forever? Is he in a mental asylum somewhere now?) The original movie was about a single woman trying to keep her job and deal with the responsibilities of motherhood. The sequel is nothing but dumb sitcom hijinks. Five years later, Hecklering wrote and directed Clueless. All was forgiven.

‘Bicentennial Man’ (Christopher Columbus)

COLUMBIA PICTURES/TOUCHSTONE PICTURES

Christopher Columbus has an incredible ability to create comedies that bring tears at unexpected moments. This is true for Mrs. Doubtfire, Stepmom, and even the first two Home Alone movies. (There’s a reason the original reduces George Costanza to a sobbing mess on Seinfeld.) But the formula didn’t work on 1999’s Bicentennial Man, where Robin Williams plays a robot that lives for over 200 years. It’s based on the 1976 Isaac Asimov novelette The Bicentennial Man, but it’s a painfully sappy adaptation where Williams is forced to confront the fact that everyone he loves will eventually die. Much has been written about the brilliant movies of 1999, but nobody cites this one as an example. Fortunately, the fiasco had little impact on Columbus’ career. His next movie was an adaptation of a children’s book about a British boy who learns he’s a wizard on his 11th birthday. That one worked quite well.

‘Basic’ (John McTiernan)

BASIC, Dash Mihok, Samuel L. Jackson, 2003, (c) Columbia/courtesy Everett Collection

©COLUMBIA PICTURES/ EVERETT COLLECTION

John McTiernan may not be as well known as many other directors on this list, but he’s the man behind Predator, The Hunt for Red October, Die Hard, and the criminally underrated Die Hard With a Vengeance. In other words, he made the two good Die Hards. He had no involvement with the three shitty ones. (And yes, Die Hard 2 is better than four and five. It still sucks.) If he just made the original Die Hard, he’d deserve a lifetime achievement award at the Oscars. His career took a hit in 1993 when he directed Last Action Hero (which isn’t as bad as legend suggests), and nosedived in 1999 when The 13th Warrior bombed hard. But he bottomed out in 2003 with Basic, an action thriller that reunited the Pulp Fiction team of John Travolta and Samuel J. Jackson. The convoluted plot centers around a DEA agent trying to figure out why an Army Ranger drill sergeant disappeared during a training exercise. There’s a twist ending that’s as stupid as it is implausible. Simply put, it’s the least enjoyable Pulp Fiction reunion you could possibly imagine. It’s been over 20 years since Basic tanked, and McTiernan has yet to direct another movie. (This is largely due to his involvement in the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping scandal, which ultimately sent him to prison for a year in 2013. But that’s a whole other story.)

‘Assassins’ (Richard Donner)

ASSASSINS, Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, 1995.

©WARNER BROS/ EVERETT COLLECTION

As the movies have shown us over and over again, it’s not easy to retire when you’re a professional assassin. There’s always some nefarious force from your past that strong-arms you into taking one last job. That’s the cliched plot of Richard Donner’s 1995 movie Assassins, starring Sylvester Stallone and Antonio Banderas. This was a few years past the point where Stallone’s name on a poster meant any movie would be an automatic hit, and a few years past the point where Donner churned out stunning movies like The Goonies, Scrooged, Superman, and Lethal Weapon 2 (it’s better than the first) at a remarkable clip. Assassins doesn’t have any of that Lethal Weapon magic. It’s just a turgid action flick that felt like a relic of an earlier time. It was also a huge commercial and critical disappointment that Donner never quite recovered from despite finding moderate success a couple of years later with Mel Gibson’s Conspiracy Theory.

‘Girl 6’ (Spike Lee)

GIRL 6, Theresa Randle, 1996. ©20th Century-Fox Film Corporation, TM & Copyright/courtesy Everett Collection

20TH CENTURY FOX LICENSING/ EVERETT COLLECTION

Spike Lee wrote the first eight movies he directed, including Do the Right Thing, Jungle Fever, Crooklyn, and Malcolm X. But in 1996, he decided to adapt a screenplay by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks for the screen. Girl 6 is about a struggling actress who finds work as a phone-sex operator. The work takes a toll on her personal life and mental health before she walks away from it. It’s an interesting premise for a movie, but virtually nothing about it works. “Girl 6 is Spike Lee’s least successful film,” Roger Ebert wrote, “and the problem is twofold: He doesn’t really know and understand Girl 6, and he has no clear idea of the film’s structure and purpose. If he’d been able to fix the second problem, he might have been able to paper over the first one. Strongly told stories have a way of carrying their characters along with them. But here we have an undefined character in an aimless story. Too bad.”

‘The Good German’ (Steven Soderbergh)

CATE BLANCHETT stars as Lena Brandt and GEORGE CLOONEY stars as Jake Geismer in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Virtual Studios' dramatic thriller "The Good German," distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film also stars Tobey Maguire...PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE USED SOLELY FOR ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, PUBLICITY OR REVIEWS OF THIS SPECIFIC MOTION PICTURE AND TO REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE STUDIO. NOT FOR SALE OR REDISTRIBUTION. ..

MELINDA SUE GORDON/WARNER BROS.

Steven Soderbergh has made just about every kind of movie imaginable. The only thing Solaris, Magic Mike, Erin Brockovich, Oceans 11, Kafka, and Contagion have in common is that he directed them. But he proved that film noir wasn’t his thing in 2006 when he adapted Joseph Kanon’s spy novel The Good German for the big screen. George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and Tobey Maguire were given lead roles, and Soderbergh made every effort to make this look like an actual film noir from the Forties, down to black-and-white film stock and a poster that paid homage to Casablanca, but the retro play just didn’t work. He spent so much time on the look and feel that the story suffered. “There isn’t a moment in this self-conscious, uninvolving movie when you aren’t aware you are watching an experiment,” Rene Rodriguez wrote in the Miami Herald, “which might make a good lesson for film school students on what not to do.”

‘Random Hearts’ (Sydney Pollack)

When Harrison Ford agreed to star in a 1995 remake of Sabrina with Tootsie and Three Days of the Condor director Sydney Pollack, it was a rare misfire for the Hollywood superstar. Ford bounced back in 1997 with Air Force One. But he returned to Pollack two years later for Random Hearts, an adaptation of a 1984 Warren Adler novel about a love affair between a congresswoman and a police officer. They meet when their spouses die in a plane crash. It’s a good book, but a deeply boring movie. “It takes forever for this portentous drama to get to the inevitable moment when the chilly congresswoman melts in the dogged cop’s arms,” wrote Newsweek’s David Ansen, “and when it does, the heat generated by these two attractive stars barely rises above room temperature.”

‘Jupiter Ascending’ (The Wachowskis)

©WARNER BROS/ EVERETT COLLECTION

The incredible success of The Matrix and the two sequels gave the Wachowskis a license to basically make whatever movies they wanted. They used it to take on fantastically ambitious movies like Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas, and Jupiter Ascending. When they all failed to achieve anything remotely comparable to Matrix-level dollars, their “do whatever the fuck you want” license was revoked. But Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas have genuine cult followings. They are flawed, but interesting. Jupiter Ascending is just a friggin’ mess. It’s a Mila Kunis/Channing Tatum space opera about a cleaning lady on a futuristic Earth who finds herself on an interplanetary adventure alongside a genetically engineered soldier. Nearly everyone involved in the movie said they knew they were making a turkey the whole time, especially since the budget got chopped in half at the last minute. “It was a nightmare from the jump,” Tatum said in 2022. “It was a sideways movie. All of us were there for seven months, busting our hump. It was just tough.” It was also the last movie the Wachowskis made as a duo. Lana Wachowski followed it up by directing The Matrix Resurrections by herself. It was not a great movie, especially when compared to the original, but it’s better than Jupiter Ascending by absurd degrees.

‘Downsizing’ (Alexander Payne)

©PARAMOUNT/EVERETT COLLECTION

As Alexander Payne proved yet again with 2023’s The Holdovers, he’s a master when it comes to mixing comedy with drama. For more evidence of this, look back to Election, About Schmidt, Sideways, and Nebraska. In 2017, though, his instincts failed him when he made Downsizing. In the strong likelihood you forget Downsizing exists, it’s a Matt Damon movie about a man who shrinks his body down to five-inches tall to live in an experimental community with other tiny people. It’s supposed to be a land of bliss, but things go awry very quickly. “It’s the rare movie that seems to execute every part of its concept absolutely wrong,” wrote NPR’s Andrew Lapin, “a narrative, tonal, visual and sociopolitical fiasco the likes of which haven’t been seen in many moons.”

‘Garbo Talks’ (Sidney Lumet)

©MGM/EVERETT COLLECTION

Sidney Lumet made his directorial debut in 1957 with 12 Angry Men. Fifty years later, he wrapped up his career with Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead. It was a stunning finale, but he had a handful of misfires along the way. The low point was 1984’s Garbo Talks starring Carrie Fisher, Ann Bancroft, and Ron Silver. It’s about a terminally ill woman who tries to meet reclusive silent-film star Greta Garbo before she dies, drawing a paparazzo and her daughter-in-law into the quest. It’s an intriguing premise, though the payoff is absurdly disappointing. “With a buildup like this, Garbo’s entrance had better be spectacular,” Roger Ebert wrote in a one-star pan. “Unfortunately, it’s not. It’s such an anticlimax that it would have been more effective for the woman to die without ever meeting Garbo.”

‘The Ward’ (John Carpenter)

It’s not hard to pick out John Carpenter’s greatest triumphs as a director. They are clearly the original Halloween in 1978, Escape From New York in 1981, and The Thing in 1982. Many detractors point to the 1992 Chevy Chase bomb Memoirs of an Invisible Man or the 2001 sci-fi Western horror mashup Ghosts of Mars as his worst moments, but those fail in ways that are semi-interesting and occasionally somewhat novel. A small cult has grown around Ghosts of Mars since it’s so damn odd. But there’s no cult around the 2010 Amber Heard horror film The Ward. It’s just a rote, drab flick about a woman stuck in a haunted mental ward. “[It] continues the painful decline of a director who seems more nostalgic for past glories than excited about new ideas,” The New York Times’ Jeannette Catsoulis wrote in a pan. “Quaintly old-fashioned in style, plot and special effects, this familiar tale of female derangement and institutional abuse is too tame to scare and too shallow to engage.”

‘The Stepford Wives’ (Frank Oz)

Nicole Kidman in "The Stepford Wives"

PARAMOUNT PICTURES/DREAMWORKS

Frank Oz is best known as the puppetmaster behind Yoda, Miss Piggy, Cookie Monster, and Grover. But he’s also a gifted filmmaker who dir

Wednesday, June 19, 2024

Thrust: Album reviews ProgArchives

HERBIE HANCOCK Thrust reviews

Collaborators/Experts Reviews

Review by Sean Trane
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Prog Folk

The logical musical continuity of Head Hunters still featuring The Headhunters (now a group), Thrust comes back with a better (IMHO, although I'm likely to be in a minority) album than HH with a slightly different line up, bringing Mike Clark (a white dude to be found later in Brand X as Collins' replacement) to replace session drummer Harvey Mason. Whether Thrust came before or after Headhunter's space funk album, is not clear to me, but I find this one more interesting; not because of the return of Springett on the artwork (actually I find it a little too pretentious), but because it tries to be more accessible and listener-friendly.

Starting the same way HH did, but this time with the drummer instead of bassist Jackson, then having Summers intervening with all kinds of percussion instruments, Hancock is again using his clavinet to simulate the funky guitar. The 10-mins+ Palm Grease is an arrangement of a funk rhythm that Clark and Jackson had found at a concert warm up. Actual Proof is much calmer and not nearly as loud and Hancock borders dissonance in his improvisation, pushed as far as he could by his rhythm section.

The flipside starts on the Maupin/Hancock composition, but it sounds as if they'd encountered Brian Auger's Oblivion Express on their path. The 11-mins Butterfly is a real joy to listen to especially when Maupin his wide array of wind instruments at the forefront. The closing ultra-funk Spank-A-Lee is another rhythm found by Clark, Jackson and Summers and it's by far the loudest track on the album

Strangely enough, Thrust climbed to the same #13 spot on the Billboard and sold quite a bit, but it fails to get the recognition of HH, even though it's probably more listener-friendly.

Review by Chicapah
PROG REVIEWER

After anteing up for the high-stakes jazz rock/fusion poker game that was being played in the mid 70s with their impressive "Headhunters" LP, Herbie Hancock and his ultra-talented cohorts proceeded to boldly raise the stakes by releasing this splendid album right on its heels. While the original lineup of the Mahavishnu Orchestra was folding, Weather Report was investigating the spacier, more esoteric angles of the genre and Return To Forever was busy blending hard rock ingredients with jazzed-up spices, Herbie & Co. were intent on stretching the boundaries of progressive funk to its limits. HH is quoted as saying "Rather than work with jazz musicians that could play funk, I worked with funk musicians that could play jazz." Makes sense to me. The result is "Thrust," a fantastic quartet of songs that never fail to entertain and amaze.

"Palm Grease" starts things off with drummer Mike Clark laying down a basic pattern before the whole band saunters in one at a time to build the funkhouse brick by brick. Bill Summers' exciting percussion provides a quick break, then the group goes right back to work like skilled carpenters. After a key change Bennie Maupin puts a wah-wah effect on his tenor saxophone while Hancock displays his expertise on the electric piano. The whole piece is more in the vein of "an exploration of the groove" than a virtuoso showcase and it's incredibly cohesive. The synthesized strings that roll in over the finale allow for a psychedelic exit.

"Actual Proof" begins with the funk monster running at a torrid pace underneath a somewhat leisurely alto flute/synth melody line but then evolves into an intense trio of drums, bass and electric piano. The rhythm section of Clark and bassist Paul Jackson is unreal as they sizzle like frying bacon below Herbie's hot electric piano ride and together they play as if they're triplets joined at the hip. This is one fervent throw-down, my friends. Finally Maupin's flute floats in to lighten things up and to keep things from ending in a tragic occurrence of spontaneous combustion.

The aptly named "Butterfly" is a welcome change of pace at this point. It floats like a. well, you know as Bennie's deep (and so fine) bass clarinet creates the beautiful melody that sings over the hypnotic, pulsating beat. He then delivers an exquisite soprano sax ride followed by Hancock's sly Rhodes piano and tasteful synthesizers. Before you realize it, though, the stealthy rhythm section escalates the number into double-time briefly before they all return to the original feel and reprise the soothing melody. It's a remarkable tune and my favorite cut on the album.

"Spank-A-Lee" wakes you up like a rude slap in the face as its furious tempo sets the mood for a prog funkathon that's hotter than Hades. They don't leave anything in the tank on this blistering track as Maupin's tenor saxophone blazes away over the Clark/Jackson inferno roiling below. Herbie and Bill do their best to keep things from flying asunder but you can tell that they're being relentlessly sucked into the cyclone like swimmers caught in a rip tide. Eventually the band eases off the gas to throttle down with some cool accents and kicks before gracefully landing the mother ship softly back on terra firma. This is one roller coaster ride that's not for the elderly or squeamish.

This assemblage of four extended tracks is a primo example of top-notch instrumental progressive music. For those who have yet to delve into the sometimes dizzying but exhilarating world of jazz rock/fusion (with a heavy dose of funk in this case) I don't hesitate to say that this album and its predecessor would be a wonderful place to begin. These proggers weren't fooling around. 4.2 stars.

Review by Easy Money
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

Some albums so transcend their genre that to include them with others of their genre almost seems like an insult. Would you say that Made in Japan is just another hard rock album, that Master of Puppets is just another metal album, or that White Light White Heat is just a low-fi garage rock album. Such is the case with Herbie Hancock's Thrust, this is what most would label funk-jazz, but you will not find another funk jazz album like this, not by Herbie, not by anyone.

The level of sophisticated syncopation and inventive rhythmic interplay between the musicians on here is just mind boggling. I've been playing fusion for over 30 years and this album still blows me away, how do they do this! Drummer Mike Clark has got to be one of the slickest trickiest drummers out there, and the rest of Herbie's crew seems to relish every twist and turn he throws at them. I'll never forget the first time I heard this album. Palm Grease opens with the expected rock beat boom-pow of kick on 1 and 3, and snare on 2 and 4 and then all of a sudden the kick hits twice and ends up on the and of 1 which throws the snare onto the and of 2 and the and of 4, and then back to the original beat. It may not sound like a big deal now, but at the time I felt my world had been turned upside down and sideways. As difficult as this music may be to execute, this isn't lifeless technical exercises in rhythmic complexity, just the opposite, every tune on here is full of joy and kinetic energy, easily this is one of the liveliest albums I have ever heard.

All on this album is not just poly-rhythms though, as usual with Hancock you also get the best electric piano solos in the business, brilliant mini-orchestrations that feature Herbie's fleet of analog keyboards with Bennie Maupin's woodwinds, and lots of 70s styled 'futuristic' synthesizer effects and solos. The synthesizer was still fairly new to jazz when this album came out, and no one in jazz at that time was orchestrating with electronics the way Hancock was.

You get four tunes on this masterpiece, Palm Grease and Actual Proof fill side one with abstact synth driven post-funk free-form algorithmic constructions. While side two opens with Butterfly, one of Herbie's many brilliant laid-back futuristic sophisto-lounge pieces. This is a style that is unique to Hancock, and a style he returns to throughout his career. The album closes with Spank-a-Lee, a JBs meets Sly Stone styled RnB funk number that is driven into hyper space by one of Herbie's trademark 'brink of insanity' electric piano solos, and then pushed even further by Bennie Maupin's saxophone which battles furiously against Herbie's heavy synth-horn lines.

This is a great album, all of the musicians are top notch and at the peak of their game, and if you are a fusion musician yourself, this album will have you shaking your head in a state of disbelief, especially on Actual Proof when the musicians come out of the ongoing improvised chaos and play unison lines seemingly at random points in the song, how do they do this!

Nothing says fun like a hefty dose of heady, complex, and playful funk from Mr. Hancock's Headhunters. Thrust continues in its celebrated predecessor's shoes by delivering monstrously deep and experimental grooves while keeping the feel and soul instantly accessible for the mass audience. Anyone even somewhat interested funk-- or even instrumental music in general-- should take this one seriously.

The album opens simply with light drumming from the Clark (a trap-set musician), with bass, wakka- chicka-wakka guitar, classy and varied woodwinds, and an ever expanding palette of synthesizers which swells by the song's finale to a genuine masterpiece of many-tentacled funk... and this is just the first song-- school's in session suckas.

Thrust takes the listener to smoky dens of '70's style with the masterful musicianship and a cerebral level of complexity. For someone coming from a metal background, this release is a priceless change of pace and mood. Do yourself a favor: check this one out and spend a day grooving with Herbie... you'll never look at jazz at the same.

Songwriting: 4 Instrumental Performances: 5 Lyrics/Vocals: NA Style/Emotion/Replay: 4

|B| A fusion-funk standard with intelligence, accessibility, and most of all... GROOVE!

Thrust was my intro album to the wonderful music of Herbie Hancock, easily one of the most revolutionary and experimental artists of the twentieth century. I'm good friends with a family that has collected prog, jazz, and fusion combinations of the two for over thirty years, to my luck. I told the jazz fan of the family I was getting really interested in jazz funk as well as fusion, especially after encountering the Brecker Brothers' early material and Return to Forever, and the first album he let me borrow to start off the bat was this one. And man, was it satisfying! I still love listening to it now and then after bombarding my brain with all the extreme metal I've been listening to lately, quite a nice contrast. I was very glad to see his works added to this site, to say the least, to give me the opportunity to proclaim my love for all of this great music of his.

To describe the composition, here we have a delicate combination of jazz fusion and funk, with a very jamming riff-based method of creating the music. Some of most spectacular conversations between musicians I've ever heard can be found right on this album. Every musician plays an incredibly active role in the overall effect of the music created, to such an extent as to create a truly complex piece of work, with very little repetition, save in the reoccurring themes that remind the listener where exactly the root of the track lies, each of which is spectacular. Hancock does a lot of great things with various keyboard settings, and they all play such a perfect role in the scheme of the groovy jamming madness in the heavier parts, as well as playing a truly brilliant atmospheric role in the softer parts. Most of the faster parts involve swift, almost furious drums and bass, and the keyboard and horn parts come in with a great catchy riffs on top. And best of all, every time I come back to hear this album, I find something really cool I hadn't noticed before, usually the way two or three of the instruments work together and converse, and with a five person ongoing conversations, this is true for every listen I give this album.

Two of the four tracks, the second and the third, stand out to me most as my favorites, both in their personal and intellectual effect on me. Actual Proof is especially entertaining for the way it came about in the production. The producer told them he had his own idea of how he wanted it to sound, while the band's collective idea was already there, so the producer told them that if they could play and record it perfectly once, it would be on the album, but if not, his idea of how the track ought to sound would trump. Of course, Hancock's group, being the virtuosos they were, pulled off victorious, which is especially astounding when you realize the shear complexity of the track. These aren't just musicians, they're borderline gods on their instruments. Butterfly is the other one that stands out to me, mainly because my group of prog-minded friends (two of which where in the family I mentioned) found it in a jazz real book, and we performed it for our High School recital our senior year. I put out a great sax solo and didn't want to stop for my friends' turn to solo, for the music here is seriously THAT self indulgent (and wonderfully so), especially for the performing musician. You just get so mentally sucked into it you never want to stop playing.

Whether your into prog or jazz or some great combination, this album, and the music of Hancock overall, is unlike anything you've ever heard before, even if your a jazz fusion fan as I am. And if you are such a fan, this is an album you really shouldn't go long without. Jazz mixed with fusion mixed with funk with hard hitting riffs and almost chaotic grooves... quite proggy, if you ask me. It's complex, yet so accessible; it's catchy, yet so mind-blowing; it's intellectual, yet so much funking fun!!!

Review by Kazuhiro
PROG REVIEWER

It was 1972 that Herbie transfered the register to United States Colombia. In his work till then, of about three years, making his chaotic music and a progressive tune was the charms. And, Herbie suddenly came up with the route of Funk. The music that he established in "Head Hunters" influences all over the world with the impact. And, the album produced in shape to promote them further is this "Thrust".

The drum player has been changed to Mike Clark. And, this organization might be the best member at this time.

It is a route of Funk to the end for the music that this band weaves. This..band..for..perform..Music..further..Music..challenge..splendid..member..unite..quality..l oud tones..easy..finish.

"Palm Grease" advances by the rhythm by the composition of the demiquaver. The keyboard of Herbie causes his original space.

In "Actual Proof", fast Passage by the demiquaver is an impressive tune. It is often announced live. The band dashes in union.

In "Butterfly", the age of Electric Herbie might be especially a masterpiece. The tune collected to this album is original though this tune has various Version. The rhythm that progresses slowly advances toward a sensual direction a little in the element of Latin by the content melody. Work that SAX of Bennie is good is done.

"Spank-A-Lee" might be a tune that the route seen since this album is come up with. The creation of Herbie has gone out of development and the melody strongly to the end though the tune is a route of Funk.

It is music that can be enjoyed enough also with the unit even if it thinks as a set though it is an album located between "Head Hunters" and "Manchild". It might be a material necessary to research Herbie at this time.

"This was a very creative time for Jazz music in America. Jazz, Rock, Funk, Soul and African rhythms were all starting to meld into one another. The existing rules didn't apply anymore, it was total spontaneity and improvisation.There was no real precedent set or parameters to conform to. We just went for it". These are the words of drummer Mike Clark, he goes on to say: "Each new Jazz record that came out pushed past the boundries of the preceding one.We couldn't wait to hear what Miles,Tony Williams or Chick Corea was going to do next. It was as if the dam had broken, and creativity was just spilling out". This album "Thrust" was the followup to the very successful "Headhunters" album. Mike Clark is in as the new drummer and that's the only lineup change. I really like the way this guy drums, in fact I like this album more than the preceeding one. Like "Headhunters" this is very funky with Herbie adding those synths (he plays four different ones along with clavinet) and electric piano melodies.

"Palm Grease" opens with drums as clavinet then bass join in. Percussion 1 1/2 minutes in followed by sax. Love the sound of that sax, it makes me smile. Electric piano at 3 1/2 minutes. This is so catchy.Themes are repeated. Fun and funky. I like the synths after 9 1/2 minutes. Great tune. "Actual Proof" is all so intricate and complex as different sounds come and go. The flute from Maupin is a nice touch here. Love the drum work. The tempo picks up after 2 minutes.This is even more impressive. Herbie's piano leads the way and the bass is prominant from Jackson. It settles 8 minutes in as it ends much like it began.

"Butterfly" is a relaxing song with synths and clarinet along with laid back drums and percussion. Sax eventually replaces the clarinet, which in turn is replaced by the electric piano.The clarinet is back 9 1/2 minutes in. "Spank-A-Lee" brings us back to the funk. So much going on here. The drums and bass mesh so beautifully together. Amazing. A collage of sounds as sax and piano come and go.The sax is ripping it up 4 1/2 minutes in as they all let loose. This is intense !

I think the cover art is significant. It's like Herbie is telling his fans that he's going to lead them to places in music where no one as been before. Far out Herbie !

Review by snobb
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

After so well-known Head Hunters album, Hancock continued his jazz-funk recordings with a slightly different line-up. Even if similar to it's predecessor, this album has more soul and melody, or just more music! Even if often I can respect technical skills of funk musicians, for me the main problem with that kind of music is it's monotonous repetitive rhythm structures. I can enjoy listening few times the same rhythmic picture played by talented musicians, but after fifth or even tenth time listening the same construction I became boring and often losing any interest. So, if even previous album was a bit too funky for me ( and Hancock peak in that field is Man-Child, pure funky rhythm without even a traces of melodism or improvisation), Thrust made a step towards more melodic, more jazzy music. It became a bit more accessible, and more pleasant for listening. But at the same time this album is complex masterpiece, excellent combination of complex and accessible, difficult and easy things. I think this album is one of the best Hancock jazz-funk works ever and best place for newcomers to Headhunters.

Really recommended!!

Review by Flucktrot
PROG REVIEWER

Yet another limitation of being raised on classic rock radio: I never was exposed to Herbie Hancock and gang's very catchy and groovable funk. With Thurst, you can immediately start tapping your feet, but it's a lot tougher to immediately set down and play along, which means that it can keep progressive ears open to it for many listens after the first.

I typically note the highlights of each album, but this entire album is the highlight: four songs, four extended grooves, and all good. From the unexpected yet welcome percussive intrusions from Summers throughout to Maupin's strategically placed winds to Herbie's maximum syncopation, this is one to enjoy on the headphones or to put on at a party with non-prog guests: I doubt anyone--well perhaps excepting my grandma--would be into this album.

Overall, I think this is a great album for any collection, and it's certainly a great counterpoint to all my bombastic and spastic fusion. Very unique sound, considering the instrumentation, and a very good team effort as well, to produce what is probably my favorite jazzy funk album to date.

Review by Bonnek
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

"Nerdy funky sh*t!" That's what the wife calls this and boy do I agree. This album is a mind-blowing adventure into high-tech funk music, with layers of melodies, rhythms and riffs spinning intricate patterns around each other to form one orgy of sound. It baffles with its rhythmical technicality but it's at the same time irresistibly catchy. The result is magnificent. This is as good as funk can get.

Just as on the preceding Head Hunters, the album kicks of with an infectious funk track with impossible dense poly-rhythms that keep you constantly on edge, as they never settle for that easily flowing rhythm you are kept craving for. Actual Proof is possible even more complex and a true drum and bass marvel, even if somewhat showy. With Butterfly we get a superb atmospheric resting point before Spank-A-Lee ends the funk-feast of this album.

The musicality of the band has grown considerably since Head Hunters and this time the emphasis on rhythm finds a better balance with the musical ideas and melodies. Everything gets an equal share of attention and the album benefits as a whole, with none of the tracks disappointing or overstaying their welcome.

With its high level of sophistication Thrust is truly nerdy funky sh*t, in the most positive sense imaginable. The emphasis on rhythm might not please prog audiences as much as the Romantic Warriors of this earth and it might also be less alluring to jazz fans when comparing it to Hancock's own Sextant or Crossings. But I find it almost as deserving as those two albums.

Review by Epignosis
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

Herbie Hancock's Thrust is fine jazz funk with symphonic and psychedelic flourishes. Anyone with a taste for quirky music with incredible and unusual tones and performances will find that taste quenched here.

"Palm Grease" Opening with a funky drum rhythm and some electronic keys, a sputtering bass groove and grumpy sax join the party. With its Weather Report-like main theme, the music is cool and fun. It fades into a feathery synthesizer.

"Actual Proof" Kicking things up again, this second piece centers on wild Fender Rhodes electric piano runs, that spurting bass guitar, and drumming that just works at every second.

"Butterfly" Herbie Hancock and company ease up and provide a relaxing cruise. The saxophones croon back and forth letting a breathy moan hum now and again. The drive of the music picks up before settling into an easygoing groove with electric piano and psychedelic synthesizer.

"Spank-A-Lee" The most eccentric of this quartet, it features plenty of spluttering keyboards, electric piano, and a satisfying rhythm underneath. A raucous saxophone solo forces its way in in the second half.

Review by Warthur
PROG REVIEWER

Herbie Hancock and the Head Hunters band (with mild lineup tweaks) return for another assault on the funky side of jazz fusion. Whereas the first Head Hunters album felt like a real band effort, with Hancock regularly stepping back to let other group members enjoy the spotlight, this time he just doesn't let those synthesisers alone. At points it feels like Hancock is showboating and not giving the rest of the group space to showcase their own playing, at other points it feels as though that Herbie wants to take the album off in a radically different direction but the Head Hunters just want to crank out another commercial hit. It's still an adeptly performed funk-fusion piece, but the cracks are most definitely showing.

Review by TCat
SPECIAL COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator / Retired Admin

After getting his feet wet, Herbie Hancock approached Miles Davis to join in one of his line-ups in 1963, and helped to build up his rhythm section at the time. The section he built up was a young one, but it turned out they were quite effective, and Hancock began his professional music career off of that experience. Almost immediately, he was in the public eye, and when he struck out as a solo artist for Blue Note Records a year later, he really had no problem getting his name and reputation out there. He worked with Miles Davis until 1968 and expanded his solo career at the same time. By 1969, he had built up his reputation enough to record under his own name, or under various project names.

In 1973, he formed The Headhunters, and soon released an album under that name. This new funky sound helped him expand his fan base by crossing over to pop genres. His mix of jazz, pop, r&b, soul and funk was present on this album and it turned out to be a big hit, thus spawning other albums.

The 2nd album under The Headhunters name was 'Thrust' released in 1974 and it continued the sound started with the successful and acclaimed 'Head Hunters' album. It also turned out to be a huge selling album and is still considered relevant and important today. It consists of 4 tracks spanning a total run time of 38 minutes.

'Palm Grease' starts by establishing a beat and is soon joined by percussion and a funky synth, adding some bass and later sax and keyboards playing the main hook together. The tenor sax later takes over improvising off of the main riff, with plenty of keys supporting and at times taking over the lead. The catchy rhythm and flashy percussion carries it all forward and make the sound very appealing and accessible, but Hancock hadn't totally let the simple theme carry his tracks yet, so there is still plenty of real jazz improvisation to keep things interesting.

Hancock's 1973 album was a soundtrack for the controversial movie 'The Spook Who Sat By the Door' which was also a highly acclaimed album. The next track on 'Thrust' which is called 'Actual Proof' was originally written for that soundtrack. This track is less funky, but still quite upbeat and driven more by jazz and to a lesser degree, r&b. A fast moving bass line drives the solo keyboards (Fender Rhodes electric piano) that highlight most of this track. The feel is much more progressive with some interesting competing meters between the improvisation and the rhythm section. This is not just a great example of Hancock's abilities on the electric piano, but is also an example of how he was able to make the rhythm section that supports improvisation much more interesting thus making the overall sound much more vibrant and dynamic. This style of having a complex rhythm section underneath the solo instrument was all started by Hancock when he worked with Miles Davis and is one of the things that made Hancock so important and popular in those days. This track doesn't really expand on other solo instrumentation until later in the 2nd half of the track when the alto flute gets a chance to show off a bit.

'Butterfly' is a much slower groove starting out featuring the bass clarinet and alto sax playing the main theme together. Of course, the rhythm section is allowed to mess around with their own riffs, and soon the sax takes over the improvisation with a sweet solo as things get a little funkier with the freedom that the bass has to make his part interesting, but the tempo staying moderate. The keys in this one pretty much holds everything together, but later, you get a solo from Hancock too, this time enhanced with some interesting sounding wind instruments. The interplay between the instruments makes this track interesting, and it stands out a lot more because of the slower tempo. There are also noticeable layers of different synths. This track would be used on the Headhunters live album 'Flood' which would be released in 1975. After Hancock gets to show off his toys and his talent, the theme returns as at the first after the 9 minute mark.

'Spank-a-Lee' goes back to the fast funky groove similar to the first track but with some really cool effects furnished by both Hancock and the one man brass section Bernie Maupin. That man is another extremely well talented musician and it is easy to see why Hancock used his talents a lot, even prior to forming The Headhunters. He layers some of his instruments to make some interesting sounds and contrasts through the album, but they really stand out here, and go so well with Hancock's style. After a while, the sax breaks out of the fray with another nice solo. Hancock knew he had a top notch musician there and it is great he would allow him to show off also, but also gives more variety to the music. They always complimented each other so well. As the track goes on, the sax gets to get quite wild at places carrying things to crazy heights and then reigning himself back in. Later, the rhythm gets more responsive to the improvisation and the bands interaction shines through. This is a perfect track to end a perfect album.

No doubt that this is one of Hancock's best, and it is deserving of that. The best part is how the amazing line-up works so well together. Alas, Hancock would eventually move away to a more pop oriented sound, while the Headhunters would continue for a little while without him. But, at least we ended up with at least four great albums with this band. This is definitely a jazz fusion masterpiece and really proves what an excellent artist Hancock was when he was producing his best and most relevant albums. Nothing on this album sound dated, it could have been recorded yesterday. What is interesting though is how Hancock's pop oriented albums that came later do sound outdated. But, before all that happens, we have some excellent performances that stand the test of time much better.

Review by BrufordFreak
COLLABORATOR Honorary Collaborator

After the final sessions with his Mwandishi collaborators, Herbie was all-in for the Funk and all-in for exploring the latest sounds that technology could provide. Thrust is the result of his deep dive--on of the first jazz artists and jazz albums to take music into the Second, more melodic and pop-oriented, Wave of Jazz-Rock Fusion.

1. "Palm Grease" (10:37) using simpler structures, simpler melodic hooks, simpler more pop-oriented rhythm patterns, Herbie turns his music into a product that is more oriented toward the entertainment of the masses instead of something trying to impress the traditionalists. The musicians he has chosen to surround himself on this one are, of course, incredibly solid but also carry that single-minded vision of serving the masses and thus help in producing eminently listenable, enjoyable, and danceable songs. Great drumming from Mike Clark and great bass play from Paul Jackson while Bennie Maupin and Herbie test all the funk sound boundaries with their futuristic sounds. (17.75/20)

2. "Actual Proof" (9:40) with the smooth synth strings and floating flute, this one crosses both the Stevie Wonder-like funk and Bob James-like Smooth Jazz worlds despite the wonderfully funky bass and clavinet play. From a keyboard- perspective, this song lets me know that Herbie had heard Eumir DEODATO's hit-generating music from Prelude. From a bass and drums perspective I can hear that Paul Jackson and Mike Clark had been hearing the stuff that Buster Williams and Stanley Clarke as well as Billy Cobham and Lenny White were doing since the Bitches Brew sessions; just stupendous play from both of them! One of the coolest funk-laden Smooth Jazz songs you will ever hear! (19.75/20)

3. "Butterfly" (11:17) awesome late night cabana smooth jazz with Bennie Maupin's bass clarinet and saxello carrying a lot of the melody load--but from the back! Herbie sits back with his synth strings supporting the scene for the first two minutes before revealing his clavinet and Fender Rhodes while Bennie solos. The drums, percussion and bass are simple--like a good R&B rhythm section in relax and groove mode throughout Bennie's two-plus minute solo. Herbie takes the next extended solo--for the next five minutes!--on his Fender. Lovely. What a great earworm of a bass riff! At 7:00 Herbie moves to his clavinet for a bit and, with it, the band into a great funkified variation of the main theme before he returns to a more vibrant solo form on his Fender. (19/20)

4. "Spank-A-Lee" (7:12) an exercise in pure funk à la the recent STEVIE WONDER work (think "Boogie on Reggae Woman"). The four rhythmatists are wonderful--and obviously having a great time grooving with one another, but from the one-minute mark on it's really the Bennie Maupin show and I'm not really a sax man. While not as catchy or melodic as the previous songs, it is still demonstrative of some mighty high talent. (13.375/15)

Total Time 38:46

I think that humble, uber-talented bandleader Herbie Hancock here demonstrates that he is finally convinced that his keyboard playing can be front and center--as the main attraction--and that all of the funk tendencies taking over the radio waves and technological advances going on in keyboard instrumentation needed tending to--and advantage taken of. While I loved his 1960s work and his Mwandishi period, I am LOVING this stuff WAY more!

A/five stars; a certifiable masterpiece of Second Wave Jazz-Rock Fusion and one of my favorite albums in the J-R Fuse lexicon.

Slippery Souls