Record #4: Al Jarreau – Breakin' Away (1981)

Here’s another record from that free stack taken from my in-laws’ house, but this one is quite a bit better than the last (Air Supply…ughhh…). Admittedly, this genre (R&B/jazz crossover) is a little out of my familiarity, but most of these songs just remind me of 80s sitcoms*, or post-break up montages from 80s rom-coms (My Old Friend, especially, could be played to shots of forlorn lovers staring out windows before fading out into a rain-soaked reconciliatory plea).  Filled with jazz tinged love songs, this album has probably been put on by many a daddy after the kids had been laid to sleep.
The one thing that makes Jarreau stand out among the vaguely “funk” landscape of 80s R&B is his tendency towards scat solos, which makes for a much more entertaining listen on the more upbeat tracks. And while the first half is rather ballad heavy (but with much more success than my last entry), the B-side is filled with less mainstream offerings, all of which do a great job of showcasing Jarreau’s vocal acrobatics (see: Blue Rondo a la Turk) His mastery of his voice as an instrument is the largest contributor to the album’s success, but it also strongly benefits from the composition of the songs, which is littered with jazz-style chord changes. These two factors keep the slow songs from being boring, and the fast songs from being inane.
Allmusic’s review states that the record was “the standard bearer of the L.A. pop and R&B sound” of its time, which is what makes this record sound so dated in 2012–the album’s most prominent flaw. But what can you do?
All in all, it’s a fun record and significant cultural and historical piece, but it’s not something I’ll throw on to unwind.
*I found out after writing this bit that he wrote the theme song to the 80s dramedy Moonlighting.

Record #3: Air Supply – Lost In Love (1980)

I got this for free, so don’t judge.  And I really don’t want to have to listen to it later, so I’m just getting it over with.
Do you like sappy, overproduced, 80s rock-pop? This is your bag. Just about every track is sub-100 BPMs, features a “Long And Winding Road”-esque orchestra and egregious dramatic production flairs (piano-only codas and multiple key-changes are par for the course), and overuse of the the word “love” (“You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means”).
The sequence of this album obviously wasn’t very well thought out (it opens with three power ballads, followed by a disco-rock cut), and it doesn’t help convince unbelievers (namely, me) that Air Supply was worth the accolades they received upon the release of this record. “Just Another Woman,” the aforementioned disco-rock cut (which funnily enough follows “Every Woman in the World”) is the first song on the record that doesn’t make me want to rip the disc off of the platter and through it in the Goodwill bin. It’s also the only song on side one that breaches the 100 BPM mark, and the only track with any sort of venom to it (or maybe it’s the absence of artificially sweet sentiment).
But sadly, Air Supply’s penchant (or is it their trademark?) for ballads and vocal interplay between two nonblending lead singers is the downfall of this record. The few times they break out of that comfort zone is the only success they manage to wiggle out for themselves, even if the non-ballads are stylistically inconsistent, as if even after four albums, they still hadn’t decided what kind of band they wanted to be (besides balladeers), as they jump from disco-rock to pop country to heartland Americana rock (with the faintest hint of prog).
In summation: this is the kind of record a studio has a band release when they want to make a few bucks, heavy on potential heart-stirring singles with enough “variety” to keep the listener from getting bored with ballads. It’s albums like this that led to the invention of the “greatest hits” album.
That Goodwill bin is sounding like a good idea.

Record #1: Adam Arcuragi – Soldiers For Feet (2008)

And we’re off, with the meager yet satisfying release from singer-songwriter Adam Arcuragi, whose mere 5 tracks I haven’t listened to in maybe three years.  But, despite being only five tracks long, it’s a satisfying listen–none of the songs seem to dip below four minutes, and a couple pass the six-minute mark.
He draws an awful lot from old country, spilling verses filled with images of Old America—Hank Williams records, Sears & Roebuck catalogs, the ruins of a house fire, and World War II are all par for the course, with a gang of friends layering his decidedly un-twanging voice with the kinds of harmonies Arcuragi must have fallen in love with as a child watching Grand Ol Opry on television (there’s even a “yodel-ay-hee” chorus, no joke).
Musically, it seldom strays from the acoustic guitar plus accompanying lap steel, horns, and backup vox. The two notable exceptions are “Almost Always,” the weakest track on the record in the form of a sappily sung piano ballad; and the noise interlude at the very end of the excellent “The Belgian.”
Overall, it’s a little refreshing to hear an honest to goodness old fashioned country western channeling record from a year when so many acts were hipstering the medium up (no offense to Fleet Foxes), even if the last track undoes much of what the previous four great songs did to restore the country music goodness of old.