Mona Lisa / The Greatest Inventor (Of Them All) - Nat King Cole
Why included: Best Sellers In Stores Billboard #1 hit in Jul-Aug 1950 for 5 weeks
A-side: Mona Lisa
As anyone could guess after reading my previous reviews and seeing my preferences for blues, soul, and rock music above almost everything else in Western popular music, I am not much of a fan of traditional pop music. Too overly sentimental, too smooth, too sappy, too much show-biz in general. Music's primary function, in my view, is emotional gut-punch and empathizing with other ways of seeing the world, but most traditional pop music aims at being "refined" entertainment rather than inducing the necessary catharsis we need to get through the day. What use is that for me, or for anyone for that matter? If I need to express some deep-rooted pain, I'll cry it out next to Otis Rush. If I want to express my love towards a woman, I'll have Ray Charles lend me a hand. And if I want some really awesome entertainment, I'll have Jerry Lee Lewis whip out a thunderstorm for me. The Bing Crosbys and Frank Sinatras are just too straight-jacketed to properly befriend that way, and I don't think I'll have a change of heart on this subject anytime soon.
With all of this said, my opinion on one of Nat King Cole's most famous and beloved songs should be pretty obvious. He's a solid vocalist and piano player in his own right, but I can't help but feel indifferent to this stuff. The whole recording feels so calculated to be beautiful that it ends up sounding soulless, and it certainly doesn't help when the production is quite sterile and dated. Nat goes in and sings it like a piece of lightweight radio fluff, and that's exactly how it sounds today: a commercial product from a different era. I'm not saying by all of this that you cannot come out with a beautiful masterpiece by sticking to pre-rock pop aesthetics, but Nat is unfortunately out of luck. Jimmy Reed ain't no Sonny Boy Williamson II and Pearl Jam ain't no Alice In Chains, but both Jimmy and Pearl Jam were fortunate enough to be recording in a genre more conducive to emotional expression. Nat gives it his best, but when you sing stiffly and formulaically in a stiff and formulaic genre, the results are going to end up as such.
B-side: The Greatest Inventor (Of Them All)
Apple Music link: https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-greatest-inventor-of-them-all-1993-digital-remaster/726098124?i=726148204
Well, this is a pleasant surprise. After feeling totally unmoved by hearing many of his hits and his most acclaimed album (After Midnight), this is the first song of his that I actually enjoyed. A lightweight gospel-pop rave-up number with a minimalistic choir arrangement works surprisingly well, and this is one of the few times you can hear Nat letting it loose and having some fun even in this low-key atmosphere. Unlike the best of Sam Cooke's seminal gospel recordings, this is unlikely to blow you away and make you a believer, but I much prefer Nat recording material like this to his usual stuff. He must have fully known this was going to be a B-side and, instead of doing what he was expected to do, did something he wanted to do, which will always score points with me.
Verdict: Recommended
I think this single is the perfect demonstration of the trend that many talented commercial artists would practice where the more accessible and radio-friendly song was chosen as the A-side while the more unpredictable facets of their personalities would be relegated to the B-side. The recommended verdict is primarily for the B-side, which is not a masterpiece by any stretch but demonstrates he was not entirely a product to sell to the masses. And while I have my reservations, the A-side is not totally unlistenable either and clearly is still remembered by some to be featured in Glass Onion. You still should not pay it too much mind though: it isn't even the best song about the Mona Lisa anyways.
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