Review:

on 2011-02-24 CharlesMartel Said:

I really don't know why I bought this album. I was never a great fan of Rod Stewart at the best of times. In any event, his later stuff was never as good as his earlier stuff. So why did I buy a 1980's Rod Stewart album when the man was way past his peak and was in danger of becoming a parody of himself. His earlier stuff from the seventies at least had some balls, but this is almost uniformly awful. So why DID I buy it? Can't say. Must have been a song which caught my attention or something - possibly "Baby Jane" I don't know.

Note to self: Do not buy any more albums on the strength of one song.

It is perhaps a pity I could not have provided myself with that advice when I bought this. Having said that, had there been downloads available then that advice might have been possible to heed. Aah, technology! You have since allowed me to buy otherwise crap albums on the strength of one track I like. But then again, you have kept Rod Stewart going long past the time when he should have been pensioned off to the old folks home to play whist with old ladies while watching afternoon TV and re-runs of Lucille.

And who was Rod Stewart by the early 1980's by now? A pastiche of his former self, the rockin' blues influenced style had gone; the throaty voice was no more. Rod was wearing a hideous red leatherette suit with padded shoulders and threatening to go all schmoozy on us. Just who his tailor was for this album cover, the perpetrator of a fashion style that most of us, even in the eighties, would not have dared to wear, I think we should be told.

Thankfully, the album does not deliver Rod the crooner (that abomination was still a decade or so in the future), but this is not epic Rod. This is not even good Rod. This is commercial Rod aiming for pop success in the charts, complete with synthesisers, drum machines (and probably swirling dry ice as well). How sad. Rod had become a popstar. Popstars might make more money and (definitely in Rod's case) get the girls, but there is no credibility in being a popstar. It is one step above being a cartoon character. At least we are fortunate, I suppose, that Rod did not take it a step further and become a Kiss-like character.

In truth there is hardly a song on this that is worth mentioning. "Baby Jane" probably had some limited, transient appeal at the time, but like so much mainstream pop, the memory of it quickly disappears. I had pretty much forgotten I had this, and looking back, I cannot remember the last time I played this album throughout. I heard a few tracks recently and they just epitomised early eighties awful trashy pop at its worst. Rod should be turning in his grave at the thought of this.

So that goes to show doesn't it? This did not make much of an impression on me. 20 years after it came out it certainly is not going to now. Best put it back on the shelf from once it came and hope that it doesn't pop up on the old iPod shuffle too often. Aah, technology! You bastard!!.
Rating: 3/10