The Atrocious Music Collection: #11 in a series
Artist: Leonard Nimoy (1931-2015)
Album Title: Highly Illogical
Category: CelebrityYear: 1993 (actual recordings mostly from the 1960s/1970s)
Cover art style: Just want to make sure you know: this is that guy from Star Trek
Audio samples: Acquisition: Gift
Click on pictures for full-sized images
Just as Spock is not the opposite of Kirk, but his complement, so is Leonard Nimoy’s musical output the complement of William Shatner’s, and not its antithesis. They are not arch-enemies or rivals, but one whole split perfectly into two along clear fault-lines. There is no overlap, no shared geography after the rupture – the mountains are here, the plains are there, the desert is here, the waters are there. Shatner’s musical output is personal, programmatically themed, over-reaching, overacted, full of grand plans and flights of fancy. Nimoy wants to simply do the one thing Shatner does not do: Sing.
Yes, there are a number of cuts where Nimoy does Shatner-like narration (The Difference Between Us), and often these numbers put on full display Nimoy's hippy politics (Amphibious Assault), and in others, the "I-was-a-space-alien-on-TV" thing is played up (Contact). Just as Spock occassionally gained emotions, always in excess (like a second Kirk), so Nimoy plays at Shatner's game from time-to-time, with these spoken-word "songs."
But in tunes like I Walk the Line and Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town and Proud Mary we can hear that Nimoy just wants to SING, even if he isn’t quite the best singer, even if the song isn't really the right one for him. He just wants to sing us a song, people. And then maybe another, if we’ll have him. And because of Spock, he became famous enough to sing on records, to bring his singing to all who would care to listen to him sing.
And there is nothing wrong with that.