''Honi Soit'' is the seventh solo studio album by the Welsh rock musician John Cale, released in March 1981 by

A&M Records A&M Records was an American record label founded as an independent company by Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss in 1962. Due to the success of the discography A&M released, the label garnered interest and was acquired by PolyGram in 1989 and began distr ...

, and was his first studio album in six years following 1975's '' Helen of Troy''. It was recorded and mixed by Harvey Goldberg at CBS Studios, East 30th Street and Mediasound in

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with the intention of making a more commercial album with record producer

Mike Thorne Mike Thorne (born 25 January 1948) is an English record producer, arranger, composer, engineer, and musician. He started playing the piano at the age of 10. After studying physics at Hertford College, Oxford, in the late 1960s he worked as a ta ...

at the helm, Thorne would soon be known for his work with

Soft Cell Soft Cell are an English synthpop duo who came to prominence in the early 1980s. The duo consists of vocalist Marc Almond and instrumentalist David Ball. The band are primarily known for their 1981 hit version of "Tainted Love" and their pla ...

. "Dead or Alive" was the only single released from the album but it did not chart. However, ''Honi Soit'' is Cale's only studio album to date to chart on the US ''Billboard'' 200, peaking at No. 154. In 1991, Universal re-released the album on CD. It only held the songs from the original LP. This same version of the album has been reissued twice: in 2004 and 2018.

Content

All of the tracks on ''Honi Soit'' were written by John Cale, except for " Streets of Laredo", a traditional song arranged by Cale about a dying cowboy telling his story to another cowboy. The track "Need Your Loving" was left off the album in favour of "Riverbank". American artist

Andy Warhol Andy Warhol (; born Andrew Warhola Jr.; August 6, 1928 – February 22, 1987) was an American visual artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the Art movement, visual art movement known as pop art. His works explore th ...

suggested that the album should be called ''John and Yoko'', and provided the cover art, in black and white, but against Warhol's wishes Cale colorized it, a decision recounted by Cale on the song "A Dream" from his 1990 collaboration studio album with Lou Reed about Warhol, ''

Songs for Drella ''Songs for Drella'' is a 1990 album by Lou Reed and John Cale, both formerly of the Velvet Underground; it is a song cycle about Andy Warhol, their mentor, who had died following routine surgery in 1987. Drella was a nickname for Warhol coined ...

''. In a

tongue-in-cheek The idiom tongue-in-cheek refers to a humorous or sarcastic statement expressed in a serious manner. History The phrase originally expressed contempt, but by 1842 had acquired its modern meaning. Early users of the phrase include Sir Walter Scot ...

allusion to the song "Fighter Pilot", the credits on the sleeve give each of the musicians a mock military aviation role, with Cale described as " flight surgeon". The album's title is an abbreviation of the phrase ''

Honi soit qui mal y pense (, , ) is a maxim in the Anglo-Norman language, a dialect of Old Norman French spoken by the medieval ruling class in England, meaning "shamed be whoever thinks ill of it", usually translated as "shame on anyone who thinks evil of it" It ...

'' ( French: "shame upon him who thinks evil of it"), the

motto A motto (derived from the Latin , 'mutter', by way of Italian , 'word' or 'sentence') is a sentence or phrase expressing a belief or purpose, or the general motivation or intention of an individual, family, social group, or organisation. Mot ...

of the British

chivalric Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed b ...

Order of the Garter.

Critical reception

Robert A. Hull of ''

Creem ''Creem'' (often stylized in all caps) is a monthly American music magazine, based in Detroit, whose main print run lasted from 1969 to 1989. It was first published in March 1969 by Barry Kramer and founding editor Tony Reay. Influential crit ...

'' wrote that "Once again on ''Honi Soit'' – from the opening trumpet blast of "Dead or Alive" to the final pounding of the drums on "Magic & Lies" – Cale evokes the epochal – this time as a series of battles, as a pure declaration of war. Like Lou Reed's ''

Street Hassle ''Street Hassle'' is the eighth solo studio album by American musician Lou Reed, released in February 1978 by Arista Records. Richard Robinson and Reed produced the album. It is the first commercially released pop album to employ binaural recordi ...

'', it's a work on which the artist finally reveals himself, concealing his tracks yet at the same time blowing his cover." Stephen Holden of ''

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'' called the album "excellent", and described Cale as "one of the godfathers of new-wave music, hohas accomplished the seemingly impossible feat of reconciling the ferocity of postpunk rock with the stateliness of European

classicism Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for a classical period, classical antiquity in the Western tradition, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. In its purest form, classicism is an aesthet ...

." In a retrospective review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

, critic Mark Deming said that "''Honi Soit'' rivals ''

Fear Fear is an intensely unpleasant emotion in response to perceiving or recognizing a danger or threat. Fear causes physiological changes that may produce behavioral reactions such as mounting an aggressive response or fleeing the threat. Fear ...

'' as the most lividly uncomfortable album in Cale's catalog, and that's saying something." Lindsay Zoladz of ''

'' called ''Honi Soit'' a "wild

post-punk Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad music genre, genre of Punk Music, punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde s ...

album" and wrote: "Cale's approach was so consistently ahead of its time that he was easily able to slot into various emerging genres as the decades went on. ''

'', along with his production for

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and

the Stooges The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, was an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Da ...

, heralded him as a godfather of

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

, while ''Honi Soit'' proves he understood post-punk and new wave just as intuitively."

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the ''Honi Soit'' liner notes. Musicians * John Cale (" flight surgeon") – lead vocals;

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

; keyboards;

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* Jim Goodwin (" gunner") – keyboards; synthesizer;

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are ...

* Sturgis Nikides ("hellcat") – guitar; backing vocals * Robert Medici ("

navigator A navigator is the person on board a ship or aircraft responsible for its navigation.Grierson, MikeAviation History—Demise of the Flight Navigator FrancoFlyers.org website, October 14, 2008. Retrieved August 31, 2014. The navigator's primar ...

") – drums; backing vocals * Peter Muny ("wing and prop") –

bass guitar The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...

; backing vocals * John Gatchell –

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard ...

* Bomberettes (members of

Mo-dettes Mo-dettes were an English all-female post-punk band, formed in 1979 by guitarist Kate Korris, an original member of The Slits and brief member of The Raincoats, and bassist Jane Crockford, former member of Bank of Dresden. Ramona Carlier (vocal ...

) – backing vocals on "Fighter Pilot" Production and artwork *

– producer ("computer processing") * Harvey Goldberg – recording; mixing * Carl Beatty –

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who invent, design, analyze, build and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while considering the limit ...

* Harold Tarowsky – assistant engineer * Jane Friedman – management (" propaganda") * John Vogel – graphic design *

– cover concept * Fred Lorey –

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employe ...

* Warren Frank – " flight engineer" * Louis Tropia – "

logistics Logistics is generally the detailed organization and implementation of a complex operation. In a general business sense, logistics manages the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption to meet the requirements of ...

References

External links