"Metropolitan Life"
"Consumer"
"Nyet Nyet Soviet (Soviet Jewellery)"
"Laser Love"
"Moscow Drug Club"
Side B
"Underground World"
"All the Time"
"Hunger, Poverty & Misery"
"Ooh Mama"
"Big Yellow Taxi
BB Gabor was a popular Hungarian-born Toronto musician at the forefront the bludgeoning Queen Street West musical scene, with topical songs criticizing contemporary Western consumer society as well as attacking Communist Russia. Since his family had to flee to England during Hungarian Revolution, his disdain for Russian politics is clear in his music. His self-titled LP was a favorite of alternative radio station cfny 102.1 fm, and BB Gabor was awarded a U-Now award for best male vocalist.
The album spawned three singles (the first three songs of Side A), with "Nyet Nyet Soviet (Soviet Jewellery)" the biggest hit, as a blistering attack on Soviet oppressiveness ("KGB is coming to take me away...They call me a dissident, Well you're better dead than Red"). P.S. 'Soviet Jewellery' means handcuffs.
"Metropolitan Life" is a spoof on the life insurance industry ("You can Survive, but it all Depends") and the challenges of living in a big urban center ("Look around Downtown, everywhere there's Concrete").
"Consumer" is a scathing commentary on modern consumption-minded society. This song has not lost its resonance in 32 years. Listen to these lyric; "Discount prices, people Scrambling, Shoppers' mall is Mesmerized, Pretty Sales Girls, very Charming, their eyes are there to Hypnotize" or my favorite line, "The More you Eat, the More you want, Just look at the Advertising."
Spacey "Laser Love" and the funny bar-song "Moscow Drug Club" with it's great line "Where the Reds play the Blues" also garnered some airplay, making Side A back to back with recognizable gems.
Side B is far more mellow and introspective, from tender homages to his girlfriend "All the Time" and his mother "Ooh Mama" and Joni Mitchell in a jazzy re-make of "Big Yellow Taxi". BB Gabor does not lose his edge, however in the Orwellian "Underground World".
But the heart-rendering standout on Side B is "Hunger, Poverty & Misery". Financial success was to evade BB Gabor throughout his life in Canada, and he could not rise to his satisfaction above his day-to-day existence "I know there's things in Life other than Money: Hunger, Poverty and Misery". The song reveals BB Gabor deepest fear: "My future is Still Undecided, the Razor's Edge Might Still Cut Me Through".
Sadly, this poverty mindset was to plague him throughout his life, and in 1990 BB Gabor was found dead of an apparent suicide. I remember thinking, one year later, on a bright sunny day at the Bambo restaurant in his beloved Queen St West neighborhood, that it was a crying shame BB Gabor just missed seeing Communism fall throughout Eastern Europe and his dreaded USSR. Happy endings were beyond him at that point.
BB Gabor was New Wave pioneer and an original whose music was ahead of its time. I wish we could have heard more from this talented artist, whose short body of work is still relevant and oddly modern in 2012.
