What was the last album you listened to?

Artist: Thomas Dolby
Album: A Map of the Floating City
Genre: Pop rock
Year: 2011
Standout tracks: 17 Hills and Oceanea

I remember going through this album a few years ago and that it was to end up as a letdown but still one which included two of my favorite Thomas Dolby cuts as well, and I guess is the only real reason to why I still have it standing in my music collection.

When this album was released it seemed to get mostly positive reviews and where some even went as far as saying it was Dolby's finest hour, going as far as "thriumphing" his 80s stuff). As an result of that, my expecations were set up pretty high, even though Thomas had not made a full studio album since the early 90s.
But for me, it is what he did in the first half of the 1980s both as a musician and producer that made me a big fan and I guess expecting that his new music would sound like it did almost 30 years earlier, was pretty naive of me.

As with his 1980s albums (or at least those I own) this release also features some solid talent who lends a helping hand such as Mark Knopfler, Regina Spektor, Eddi Reader, Bruce Wooley, Kevin Armstrong, Matthew Seligman and Imogen Heap and that are just a few among the many artists who have made the guest list on this rather ambitious record.

Nothing New Under The Sun is the first one out and sadly is an very forgettable number which sounds like Thomas Dolby is trying maybe a little too hard to match the sharp and quirky lyrics he wrote along with far superior melodic hooks almost 3 decades earlier:

"Hey any fool can write a hit
 Loop me a breakbeat baby

 I'll tweak it till it fits
 During the bounce I can sniff my own armpit" 

Then follows what might just be two of his absolute worst songs ever in the utterly horrible Spice Train and its evenly matched Evil Twin Brother.
These two turds is the stuff of nightmares as Dolby sounds like he desperately tries to "update" his style to what goes on in the music world of today, and when you open an album with three such weak cuts, any chance it had of becoming any good or better is now left for the dead.

A Jealous Thing Called Love closes the first section that is called Urbanoia, and is a very relaxing and calm number that kind of feels like it could have been made during his second album The Flat Earth (1984).
Next up is Amerikana which starts up with the feel-good number, Road to Reno. An upbeat, guitar driven and very catchy song, that is easily the best one of the first five (not that it was much competition really). 

The Toad Lickers is another upbeat number which showcases Dolby's love for country/western music and also brings along the lovely Imogen Heap and Adele Bartei on backing vocals. Not a great cut, but surely miles ahead of the first three songs of this album.

17 Hills is the obvious highlight here and features the great Mark Knopfler on lead guitar.
A stunning number which finally showcases that Thomas Dolby had not forgotten about his skills as once a truly gifted songwriter and for me this song is surely among the finest he ever did.

The pleasant sounding but not very memorable Love Is a Loaded Gun closes off Amerikana and next up is the albums second best song which is the beautiful Oceanea.
If only that would have been the closer, then I would be almost happy, instead part three: continues dragging on with Simone and To The Lifeboats which sadly does very little for me and as much as I love the music Thomas Dolby did during the 80s and early 90s, as a whole, A Map of the Floating City is just nowhere near the quality of the albums he did back then and is only worthy to visit for die hard fans or because of the two gems that is 17 Hills and Oceanea, the rest is mostly consisting of numbers I likely will ever bother to listen to ever again.

I really wanted to like this record, but there is a time and place for everything and I have never, and will ever be able of "forcing" myself upon an album and "love" it.
It has to come naturally. Sure, some do require a few more listens but when understood that there is not much more left for me here, I usually moves on and rarely bother to waste more time and effort by looking backwards.
In this case, I have tried but "failed" far to many times as it is just to uneven and includes some horrible songs which for me do not have any business at all sharing the same space as true gems like the two mentiones earlier.

If Thomas makes another album, I will of course go out and buy it, but this time I will not expect much, well maybe hope for a few good ones but not go in and expect what he did over 30 years ago.

I am being very, very kind with my final rating, as this album is not very good, in fact if one takes away the two best ones, it would fall down to the category of poor/bad:

5/10