Boats Against The Current Eric Carmen Arista AB4124 Released: August 1977 Chart Peak: #45 Weeks Charted: 13 This is the sort of album people accuse Paul McCartney of making: syrupy romanticism without bite or backbeat. It is not as overtly classical as Carmen's first solo LP -- which went so far as to use a Rachmaninoff piano concerto as a melodic theme -- but it is utterly without the elements we associate with modern pop: emphasized rhythm sections, not guitars, even brass or reeds.
The lyrics make things worse. Quoting "Row, row, row your boat" at the beginning of the title track is silly enough. But But the rest of the imagery is as overwrought and manipulative as the furnishings of a Holiday Inn. Time and again, Carmen reaches for a major statement -- "For once in my live, I'm gonna do what I think is right," he sings in "I Think I Found Myself" -- but he simply lacks the resources. This is tragic. Carmen's sense of rock & roll used to be better than this; on the final Raspberries album it was, for a moment, brilliant. That moment was a song called "Overnight Sensation," and it was about his overwhelming passion to have a hit record. The last album's "All by Myself" brought him that, and he's retrenched, hoping to keep his hard-won success, perhaps. Or, maybe he just lacks enough far-reaching vision to sustain him. Whatever, it's an inadequate tradeoff. If this is really that "once in his life," Carmen ought to think twice. - Dave Marsh, Rolling Stone, 9/22/77. |
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