Troubadour

Widely hailed as the best album of Cale’s Seventies heyday (if not his career), Troubadour is a consummation of its author’s brand of hazy hypnosis. Each song deals with sex or seduction, each burning slow on blue flame heat. “Hey Baby” — with its low-key merger of horns, pedal steel, and shuffling drums — is a sly invitation to the album’s charms, as Cale quietly calls “Hey baby, you're looking real good.” Later, things become more explicit. “You Got Something,” “Ride Me High,” and “I’m A Gypsy Man” are songs for shadowy beds and velvet curtains: the red-light district has never seemed so hushed and mesmerizing. The fuzzy “Cocaine” deals with a different kind of ecstasy, and by the time Cale finds his way to “Let Me Do It To You” he can do nothing but repeat the song’s eponymous refrain over a pattern of muted funk. “Cherry Baby” is the perfect finale: a doo-wop song slowed to a languid whisper, and played as if the whole band was small enough to fit in your ear.