Monday, another day for disappointment in recordings… This week’s dirge deals with Ian Gillan Band’s Child in Time. The fact that I am NOT listening to any of its tracks as I write this is indicative of how poorly I think of it.

Ian Gillan, of course, is one of my favorite vocalists. I can forgive lots of things he’s done. But I just can’t listen to this album. I remember when I first got it. I thought it would be awesome, eardrum-busting rock and roll. What I got was poorly digested jazz-fusion. Stunned after my first listening, I tried it again. Same results. I left in on my shelf for a few years and tried it again once I had grown and my tastes in music had matured. Same results. I think I finally sold it back to a used record store and left it behind me forever.

Deep Purple’s version of the song “Child in Time” is a rock classic. IGB’s version is a jazz-fusion miscarriage. I remember how much Gillan’s vocals sounded like yowling cats on this record and that I really detested the lyrics on half the songs and didn’t care for the other half. I was so relieved when I discovered he went back to rock for his other solo work.

This album gets a 1 out of 10. It’s gone out of my life and I don’t want it back. I didn’t even bother with going to Amazon to listen to snippets of the songs to refresh my memory of it. I just looked at the wiki article on it, recognized the song titles, and the revulsion was as fresh as it was over 25 years ago.