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Harps & Angels | 
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| Artist: Randy Newman
Label: Nonesuch
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $9.47
You Save: $9.51 (50%)
New (46) Used (12) from $9.00
Rating:  28 reviews
Sales Rank: 12
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.3
MPN: 122812
UPC: 075597998931
EAN: 0075597998931
ASIN: B001AN5BNM
Release Date: August 5, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Factory Sealed!- New York's largest selection of CDs & DVDs at the lowest prices. Celebrating our 31th anniversary
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| Tracks:
| • | Harps and Angels | | • | Losing You | | • | Laugh and Be Happy | | • | A Few Words | | • | A Piece of the Pie | | • | Easy Street (3:14) | | • | Korean Parents | | • | Only a Girl | | • | Potholes | | • | Feels Like Home |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Randy Newman's first studio album of all new material in nearly a decade is, by turns, hilarious, poignant and scathingly satirical. Harps and Angels often has an easy going Crescent City feel, with Newman on piano fronting a small combo and revealing, as Rolling Stone put it after the Carnegie Hall show, his serious love and study of the New Orleans piano tradition.
Album Description
Randy Newman's 2008 studio album titled Harps and Angels. Produced by Mitchell Froom and Lenny Waronker, it contains seven new songs and three updated versions of previously released songs.
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| Customer Reviews:
 great as every--maybe better September 4, 2008
KC Musicologist (Kansas City)
Randy Newman is a national treasure. His music (lyrics) have always been highly engaging--humorous, serious, intelligent, satirical, insightful, lyrical, relevent, and irreverant. Harps and Angels is no exception.
Harps and Angels is as good as his best and rooted in today's world and national issues. If you like Sail Away, Short People, Leave Your Hat On, Rednecks, My Old Kentucky Home, Big Hat No Cattle, Riders in the Rain or any other of his songs that strike a chord in you, buy this CD! It has "out loud" laughs, "oh my he said that" smiles, "I am so glad I heard this" moments throughout. The songs each tell a different story about a different thing about life in 2008. Politics, immigration, education, family, growing old, and and employment.
It is double shot of vintage Randy Newman with a twist of today. It is smart. It is fun. It is exactly what the music industry needs to do more of. One listen is not nearly enough. Thank You Randy!
Too Long Coming September 4, 2008
Ronald A. Fleshman (Rainelle, WV)
In the nine years since Randy Newman released his last album, he's grown older, wiser, and more liberal. Just the kind of guy I like. This is probably the album of the year from the opening "Harps and Angels," in which a man has a near-death experience and goes to tell his friends about it, to "Only a Girl," the true story of a May-September love affair.
Using New Orleans rhythms and excellent orchestration, this album is a classic. he even includes two slow love songs, the new "Losing You," which is classic Newman and "Feels Like Home," first introduced on his album "Faust." Buy it. No CD collection is complete without it.
A Few Words in Defense of Randy... August 31, 2008
ewomack (MN USA)
It seems like a decade since Randy Newman released an album of original tunes. Whoa... it has been a decade... almost. The brilliantly caustic and beautiful "Bad Love" appeared way back in the pre-911 world, 1999 years after the Common Era. True, he tried to distract us with "The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 " in 2003. Nice try. The way it looks this volume 1 will end up similar to his "The Girls in My Life, Part 1." For those who don't know, after almost 30 years, "Part 2" of this epic still hasn't appeared. But with Randy Newman the wait always pays off. Thankfully, his first Oscar in 2001 (after 15 nominations!) and becoming a darling of Hollywood movie scores hasn't spoiled Newman's best side: his witty bitterness at the state of our world. "Harps and Angels" remains as caustic, as penetrating and as laugh-out-loud-at-how-screwed-we-are as any of Newman's previous releases. The return of Lenny Waronker, who produced some of his earliest classics, also permeates this album. After almost a decade it seems like Newman never left.
The title track may spark remembrances of "Faust." In it, a man has a near death experience complete with angelic background singers and French-speaking apostles. Though this Francophone tells him to "keep his business clean" or else, the resurrected Lazarus sums up this alarming experience by telling his friends "There really is an afterlife, and I hope to see you all there. Let's go have a drink." "Losing You" conjures up the classic orchestral Newman sound with strings juicier than ripe mangoes. "Laugh and Be Happy" reads like an amalgam of "Sail Away" and "Roll With The Punches." The insertion, and inversion, of a super serious line from a U2 song remains one of the album's greatest moments. "A Few Words in Defense of Our Country" stands as one of the album's centerpieces. Those who feel dispossessed by the last 8 years of American government will empathize with the sentiment presented here. Punctuated by steel slide guitar, the song tells us to chill, things could be much worse, just look at the Caesars, the Spanish Inquisition, Hitler, Stalin, and King Leopold of Belgium. The insinuations radiating here require no further elucidation. Not to mention the line "Pluto's not a planet anymore either." "Piece of the Pie" explores similar themes with delicious dissonance. It also declares a new hero: Jackson Browne (presumably because "Bono's off in Africa - he's never around"). "Easy Street" looks at life from the perspective of the elite. The music lilts appropriately. "Korean Parents" presents a solution to the alleged nescience of the younger generation, complete with Asian musical themes in the tradition of Newman's "Yellow Man." The bouncy jazzy "Only a Girl" explores the age old issue of old man with young girl ("Why would someone beautiful as she love someone old like me. Maybe it's the money. Jeez, I never thought of that"). "Potholes" takes on memory loss in a strangely humorous manner. And finally, the last track will definitely spark remembrances of "Faust," because the song actually appeared on that album back in 1995. Then, Bonnie Raitt sang it in the context of "seducing" the devil. Here, Newman delivers a rendition as moving as his justifiably famous ballad "Marie." No one will likely complain about the re-run. "Feels Like Home" closes the album on an unforgettable poignant note.
Newman's albums and career span 40 years. Through these four decades he has managed to release 12 albums of original pop material as well as countless film and TV scores. At age 64, the sad question of his inevitable retirement begins to wrinkle brows. We can all hope that "Harps and Angels" isn't his final release of this type. But given the frequency of his albums, things don't look good. But who knows? Maybe he'll crank out another classic in his 70s? Or perhaps he'll retire from film music and dedicate his time to annual follow-ups? Maybe the sun won't supernova? Regardless of the murky future, Newman has had a very productive, acclaimed, and distinctive 40 year career. The social side of his music will likely get examined by those interested in life in 20th century America (particularly his "Good Old Boys). His pursual of the New Orleans sound combined with take no prisoners satire will also stick out in the ever commercialized music world of the past half-century. Though it's too early to wave the checkered flag on Newman's career, that moment can't remain too far off. Luckily we'll have his masterpieces to keep us company after that day arrives.
Randy's Tongue Still Stuck Firmly In His Cheek. August 30, 2008
James Harrison (Melbourne, Australia)
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
There are still people out there that think the song "Short People" is making fun of short people, sadly they just don't understand Randy Newman,an intelligent and thought provoking songwriter who always gives you something to ponder.
The 10 tracks on this CD are all winners. From his near death encounter of the opening and title track Harps and Angels to the closing Feels Like Home, the record is a joy. I was fortunate to see Newman appear at Jazz Fest in New Orleans this year and heard track four, A Few Words In Defense Of Our Country for the first time, it is brilliant.Worth the price of the CD alone, have a listen. You may or may not agree with the lyrics but they will make you think.
A Piece of The Pie reflects on America being abandoned, "even Johnny Cougar who sang it's their country now" will "be singing for Toyota by fall" Bono's off to Africa but Jackson Brown still cares.
The CD contains, Angry Belgians,Happy Immigrants, Korean Parents, King Leopold of Belgium and other characters in the cast of this "Soundtrack" for a disaster movie about a crumbling empire.
Have to have it August 24, 2008
Escarole (Decatur, GA United States)
Don't have a lot to add to what others have said, just that I didn't mean to buy this but I listened to a few seconds of the first 5 cuts in a record store and it came home with me. And, I'm glad it did. Interesting comparing this work with Tom Waits, similarities jump out at you but Randy is really a different guy and he's even simpler and wickeder at some points...
I love the arrangements/orchestration on some of these, the heart attack riffs in the opening track, the Kurt Weill slam in Piece of the Pie.
Ok so lots of lyrics are not politically correct but you have to give Randy the slack because, well, he's going to take it anyway...
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