33 Revolutions is a weekly column by Vinyl Tap staff writer David Lefkowitz. Each week explores a different album, too old to warrant a traditional review, but for one reason or another deserving of a closer look.
Something about Isaac Hayes just indescribably, extraordinarily, undeniably kicks ass. He's a force of nature, a production genius armed with a voice that registers a 5.7 on the Richter Scale. It is impossible, in my experience, to attempt to sit down and listen to any of his work without having to fight the urge to throw on the closest pair of sunglasses and start stalking around your house. Of all his work, however, no other album does its ass-kicking with quite the same ferocity as his sophomore LP, Hot Buttered Soul. Released in 1969, the album runs for over 45 minutes across a mere 4 songs. His voice - a subterranean rumble at once indescribable and instantly recognizable - combines with the heavy, maximalist arrangements of late-60s pop and an unexpectedly heavy psychedelic bent to produce a listening experience genuinely unlike any other. The album is a classic, there's no two ways about it, and has been cited as a sonic influence by everyone from the Black Keys to Henry Rollins to the literal hundreds of modern songs that have sampled it.
Beginning with a single, echoing snare hit, the album plunges into a cinematic overture of strings and organ. Within 45 seconds the lush instrumentation has fallen away, giving way to a bare-bones, bluesier sound that feels more familiar (though the occasional orchestral flourish give assurance that things will get weird again very, very soon). The next 11 minutes contain some of the most engrossing, heavy-grooving music ever put to tape, building to a final crescendo that lasts nearly four minutes before falling away without any warning whatsoever.
The next song, "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" (say that 5 times fast!), launches immediately into a hard-strutting soul groove with nothing more than a few gentle, chiming piano chords as a preamble. It's only 9 minutes long - the second-shortest on the album - but it comes in swinging and leaves nothing but rubble in its wake. Flip the record and, almost as if to give you a breather, Hayes delivers "One Woman," a beautiful and startlingly straight-forward song that clocks in at a measly 5 minutes. Between the swelling strings and the choir of women singing behind him, the song provides is... well... it just nice. It sounds like a TV theme song from the early 70s. Think Mork & Mindy (believe it or not, I mean this as a compliment).
After you've been lured into a false sense of security, along comes track 4. I imagine Isaac Hayes, at this point, staring straight into the camera and saying "oh, you wanted soul? You wanted groove? Deal." With nothing but a quiet, droning organ, a bass, and a single chiming cymbal, "By The Time I Get To Phoenix" doesn't seem, at first, any different. But then Hayes begins a spoken-word section, first referencing the original songwriter and then launching into a monologue, describing the backstory he's imagined for the song's narrator. That's about when you notice that the song is 19 minutes long. He doesn't even start singing until you're eight and a half minutes in. It's ridiculous. I love it.
The song builds into another minutes-long crescendo followed by an equally lengthy winding-down until, in the albums final moments, a church organ swells out of the fray. There is a single chord, triumphant and decisive, and then it's over. Take a breather, have some water, lay down if you have to. That was a wild ride.
There is an indulgence to Hot Buttered Soul. In some ways, it feels like a response to the long-winded sensibilities that ruled rock in 1969. Music was entering the age of the jam, and Hayes was here to prove he was on the front lines. In other ways, however, this album feels startlingly self-aware for its time. It's as if Hayes knows, deep down, that this is all a little silly. He just doesn't care. "One Woman" is proof that he doesn't need 19 minutes to deliver a killer song. But the fact that he can take 19 minutes, and that he can make every second so individually enthralling... that's what sets this album apart.
So throw on some headphones and the darkest pair of sunglasses you have, queue up Hot Buttered Soul, and take a nice, long walk. You'll be strutting down the middle of your street before you know what hit you.