Nina Simone - Wild Is the Wind (1966), 5/10

Wild Is the Wind is a wildly inconsistent record but when it is great, it is truly remarkable. This irregularity in quality largely stems from the long list of songwriters but also from the scattered source of recordings and Simone’s variation in styles. Unsurprisingly, this is most apparent with Nina Simone’s only compositional contribution to the record “Four Women” that is easily one of her best songs, if not the very best, both from a songwriting and stylistic execution perspective. Contrasted with “Break Down and Let It All Out” which is unremarkable and misguided from the start, this makes the album appear jagged and unpredictable rather than fluid or attractive. There are, however, more good songs than bad, with side one being more irregular than side two, yet the best songs are undoubtedly hosted in the most inconsistent section of the record, never allowing for any true momentum to be constructed. Still, Simone’s single “Four Women” carries enough weight to make the first half memorable and interesting while the second does not have a standout song, apart from perhaps the thematic peak of the title track. The band is equally irregular, sometimes brilliantly matching and accenting Simone’s eccentric vocal qualities and sometimes detracting from the emotive power built by a song. Her style is another aspect of the album that breeds divisiveness, equally through Simone’s discography in general but it is more extreme and apparent here. The aimless and haphazard presentation mixed with a heavy reliance on individual quality to overshadow various grades of songwriting make Wild Is the Wind one of her less appealing major projects.