tone blind | morning after | the test
What is it with me and unpopular albums?
Two of my favorite albums are Devo's "Total Devo" and Depeche Mode's "Exciter" - two albums that are pretty much disregarded by fans of those two bands.
It was Wednesday night (I guess that makes it alright) when I found that Steven Perez shared a video on FriendFeed. The video involved Prince's competitor Rick James, and a singer named Eddie Murphy. You remember the song.
Well, Murphy didn't just release a song. He released an entire music album.
And, back in the day, I owned the album, "How Could It Be." And I didn't regret buying it, primarily because I remembered that one of the slow songs on the album was, in my opinion, outstanding.
So I went to last.fm to see if I could figure out which song on the album was the one I liked. However, as of January 14, the only song that last.fm had was you-know-what.
But looking at the titles, I began wondering if "My God Is Color Blind" is the song I was looking for. And I found the song (or at least its audio) on YouTube.
As is my wont, I began playing the YouTube video over and over, just to listen to the song. In the meantime, I searched for reviews of the song to see how many reviewers agreed with me about the outstanding nature of this soft Murphy song - one which, in my view, is more suited for his voice than you-know-what.
I started with Wilson & Alroy's Record Reviews. If you're not familiar with warr.org, they have very high standards, so I wasn't surprised that Wilson wasn't all that hot on this song:
Not content with being the hottest comedian around, Murphy called on his music superstar friends to help him put together a solo album. The results aren't too bad: Murphy has a likeable if unexceptional falsetto; Rick James' light funk "Party All The Time" was a major hit single....The problems start when Murphy gets involved in the songwriting and production: "How Could It Be" and "My God Is Color Blind" are sappy ballads that reveal the limits of his voice and the shallowness of his musical imagination.
OK, so they're somewhat critical, but I'm sure that other people loved the song as much as I, or at least liked it.
Several sites, including Yahoo, cited a review by Jason Elias.
In 1985, movie star and influential live comedian Eddie Murphy took a risk and released a serious, all-music effort. Despite his best intentions, How Could It Be is often marred by its lack of great material, and Murphy's voice is thin and often lacking control...."Party All the Time," written and produced by Rick James, has Murphy simply along for the ride, benefiting from one of James' best synth-based hooks. Some of the other songs aren't so successful. The well-meaning, vaguely Beatlesque pop of "My God Is Colorblind" and the jazzy and pensive "I Wish I Could Tell You When" essentially fail due to the vocals.
Ouch.
By the time I got to a New York Sun article, I wasn't holding out much hope.
Matinee idols have a lot of time and money on their hands, and probably know plenty of guys who would agree to play in a band with them if they asked. Bruce Willis, Russell Crowe, Steven Seagal, and others (the Blues Brothers don't count) have puttered around with rock bands....
Eddie Murphy almost made it stick with his indelible 1985 hit, "Party All the Time" ("My God Is Color Blind" and "Put Your Mouth on Me" didn't fare as well), but that was because the Superfreak, Rick James, wrote it. By the time Mr. Murphy released "Love's Alright" in 1993, it had sufficiently not stuck.
The common theme in the reviews above is that the reviewer liked "Party," liked some of the other songs on the album (individual reviewer likes varied), and hated "Color Blind." But that trend was broken at Bullzeye, who hated the whole album.
“Party All the Time,” Eddie Murphy (How Could It Be)
I have come to the conclusion that the only reason this song became a hit was that Murphy was so shit-hot at the time that nothing he could do would be dismissed by his fans. Wow, how times have changed. Personally, I never liked this song then, and I think it still stinks now. You could basically just throw the entire album on here as an entry, but we won’t give it that much thought, apart from the fact that it included such turds as “C-O-N Confused” and “My God is Color Blind.” Yeah, Eddie. You tell ‘em.
So I came to the sad conclusion that I am the only person in the world that likes this song.
Then I read the reviews at the YouTube page. Not all were glowing, but a few of them were:
[TAZLOWE]
Thank you!Thank You!!!! I use to love this song...I was trying to find it to have my husband listen to it and couldn't find it ANYWHERE!!!! So thank you!!!!!!
[skynatyc]
Man.. I so LOVE this song!
I have this album from WAAY and I LOVED it!
I dont have a turntable anymore.
I havent heard this since the 80's!
THANK YOU SO MUCH!
[chubbies145]
OMG I haven't heard that song in so long... I can't find that cd ANYWHERE. Thanks for adding it!
But I bet that TAZLOWE, skynatyc, and chubbies145 think that Depeche Mode's "Comatose" and Devo's "Agitated" blow. So I can't win them all.
[1/15 7:45 - THE MORNING AFTER.]
