In contrast to the experimental nature of much of John Cale's work before and after Paris 1919, the album is noted for its orchestral-influenced style, reminiscent of contemporary pop rock music.[5][4] Its title is a reference to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, and song contents explore various aspects of early 20th century Western Europe culture and history.
The album has received critical praise from several publications over the years, including AllMusic and Rolling Stone. It was reissued on 19 June 2006 by Rhino Records.
Recording
Paris 1919 was recorded in 1972 and 1973 with producer Chris Thomas, and, although musician credits were never given on the album's packaging until the 2006 Rhino expanded CD edition, it features Little Feat members Lowell George on guitar and Richie Hayward on drums, in addition to Wilton Felder of the Crusaders on bass guitar as well as orchestration provided by the UCLA Symphony Orchestra.[6]
Content
AllMusic considers it the most accessible and traditional of Cale's albums,[5] and the best-known of his work as a solo artist.
The album's title makes reference to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, an event that established a new partitioning of Europe as well as the assignment of unilateral war reparations. With the event having arguably contributed substantially to the rise of the Third Reich and the emergence of World War II, Cale described the record as "an example of the nicest ways of saying something ugly."[6]
Paris 1919 was released to warm critical reception. Rolling Stone writer Stephen Holden deemed it a "masterpiece" and "one of the most ambitious albums ever released under the name of 'pop'".[4] He found that the songwriting "requires a great deal of listening in order for its full implications to be perceived".[4]
Subsequent positive reviews continued to be published many years later. AllMusic critic Jason Ankeny praised its "richly poetic" songs for functioning as "enigmatic period pieces strongly evocative of their time and place". He also wrote that "there's little here to suggest either Cale's noisy, abrasive past or the chaos about to resurface in his subsequent work", since Cale, according to Ankeny, "for better or worse... never achieved a similar beauty again."[5]Tiny Mix Tapes remarked that "Cale slyly crafted a brilliant achievement in Paris 1919 by utilizing a mournful gentility to catch his original target audience unaware and hiding in plain sight."[16] In 2010, Los Angeles Times critic Matt Diehl called Paris 1919 "the idiosyncratic pinnacle to Cale's thrilling yet perverse career, despite the fact it never topped the charts".[17]
Paris 1919 received a full reissue on 19 June 2006 by Rhino Records UK. The revamped version features the original album remastered, in addition to the outtake "Burned Out Affair", alternate and rehearsal versions of every song on the album, a hidden, unlisted instrumental version of "Macbeth", and the sound effects of the chirping birds found in the title track. Pitchfork gave the reissue a 9.5 out of 10 rating.[11]
Live performances
Cale has performed Paris 1919 live in its entirety throughout the world, beginning in Cardiff on 21 November 2009, with his regular band and a 19-piece orchestra, with new orchestral arrangements by Cale and composer Randall Woolf. The show was staged again in 2010 in London, Norwich, Paris, Brescia, Los Angeles, and Melbourne, then in 2011 in Barcelona, Essen, and Malmö, as well as two shows in New York City in January 2013.[18][19][20]
Legacy
The Wire included Paris 1919 in its list of "100 Records That Set the World on Fire (While No One Was Listening)".[21] In 2016, Uncut ranked Paris 1919 at number 99 in its list of the 200 greatest albums of all time.[22] The album was also featured in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die (2005).[23]
