Cat Stevens - Teaser And The Firecat

Teaser And The Firecat is the sixth studio album by British singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, originally released in October 1971 via Island Records.

Even as a serious-minded singer/songwriter, Cat Stevens never stopped being a pop singer at heart, and with Teaser And The Firecat he reconciled his philosophical interests with his pop instincts.

Basically, Teaser's songs come in two modes: gentle ballads that usually found Stevens and second guitarist Alun Davies playing delicate lines over sensitive love lyrics, and up-tempo numbers on which the guitarists strummed away and thundering drums played in stop-start rhythms.

There were also more exotic styles, such as the Greek-styled "Rubylove", with its twin bouzoukis and a verse sung in Greek, and "Tuesday's Dead", with its Caribbean feel. Stevens seemed to have worked out some of his big questions, to the point of wanting to proselytize on songs like "Changes IV" and "Peace Train", both stirring tunes in which he urged social and spiritual improvement.

Meanwhile, his love songs had become simpler and more plaintive. And while there had always been a charming, childlike quality to some of his lyrics, there were songs here that worked as nursery rhymes, and these were among the album's most memorable tracks and its biggest hits, "Moonshadow" and "Morning Has Broken", the latter adapted from a hymn, with the piano played and arranged by Rick Wakeman.

The overall result was an album that was musically more interesting than ever, but lyrically dumbed-down. Tea For The Tillerman may have been the more impressive effort, but Teaser And The Firecat was the Cat Stevens album that gave more surface pleasures to more people, which in pop music is the name of the game.

The 50th Anniversary remaster was completed at Abbey Road Studios, and was overseen by original album producer, Paul Samwell-Smith.

This album is a 50^th Anniversary remaster on black vinyl housed in a gatefold sleeve, pressed in Europe via Island and Cat-O-Log Records.