Kevin Ayers - 'Odd Ditties' (Harvest)

These ditties aren't that odd, but they didn't make it to any previously released albums. Yeah, this is the singles and b-sides collection that you never wanted from Kevin Ayers, though the first side is good-to-great, being mostly singles and outtakes from the Joy of a Toy/Shooting at the Moon era. The French version of 'May I' is here, though I'm starting to get pretty sick of hearing that song. 'Gemini Child' and 'Butterfly Dance' are the highlights here, though the opening track 'Soon Soon Soon' (an abandoned single) makes a strong case with it's Nazz-like fuzz bass. Nowadays all these tracks would end up as CD bonus tracks so it's kind of weird hearing them together. Side two takes a dip in quality, beginning with a sappy faux-French duet with Bridget St. John and then presenting a slow, orchestrated version of 'Lady Rachel'. Then we dive into a shitty whirlwind of reggae-pop. There's a reason I don't own Bananamour; these songs, with Ayers singing in a fake Jamaican accent, are musical Kryptonite. The whimsical 'Don't Sing no more Sad Songs' picks things up slightly but then we get 'Take me to Tahiti' (which causes my response "and leave him there, please") and the closing single 'Caribbean Moon'. These things are always a bit hit-and-miss and here the hits are relatively clustered together, so I can just stick to side one if I ever actually listen to this again.