Search - Barry Manilow :: Barry Manilow 2 (Exp)

Leave your predisposed Barry notions at the door, please

Gregory Mitchell | New York City | 10/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I'm showing my age here (well, at least in numerical years...I bought this album and Joni Mitchell's COURT AND SPARK the same day, and they both still resonate enormously.....)



aside from the mega-hit MANDY and to a lesser extent IT'S A MIRACLE, this Manilow release is filled with surprises. Manilow's vocals have a far less glossy edge to them than when he hit mega-stardom in the 70s, and the material choice throughout is pretty superb. The album slyly begins with "I Wanna Be Somebody's Baby" and it's a track that a masher could remix down to something pretty true and sexy. And the album's true long-term winner for me is 'EARLY MORNING STRANGERS" -- a smart, sad, true winner of a lyric. I'm always surprised that more attention has not been paid over the years to the "Early Morning" track. It certainly isn't from the peppy, happy "Daybreak" Manilow. This entire album has a clarity and edge (okay, a mild edge, but it certainly evokes those 70s years in a big city) to it, a real New York City feel -- well, at least if you're a gay man in your early 50s (that's me, I'll leave Barry to his own choices). There's a undercurrent of wistfulness and yearning throughout the album and again, Manilow's vocals have an entirely different feel to them here. Mike DeLugg, here as Manilow's engineer as he was/is for so much of Manilow's best albums, again shows his total prowess over the sound booth -- just as DeLugg did with all of Jane Olivor's best work, he really understands how to put some aural space around the vocals, and it's distinctive and sublime.



This past weekend, I saw this album in a vintage store (well, I guess it is vintage by now), but just holding it in my hands brought back waves of regret and nostalgia, thinking back at the young gay teenager (me) who bought this album the weekend after he had first had sex, and the incredible longing to break free of my parents, Kansas, and make it to the Big Apple. Indeed, I'm here in Manhattan now and this album still evokes all of that want and desire."