Search - Johnny Hallyday :: Rough Town (1994)

Hallyday's first US release since 1962 is very disappointing

Cyril Malka | 04/30/1999

(3 out of 5 stars)

"If you got Chris Kimsey to produce your record, Robin Lemesurier and Shayne Fontaine to play guitar, Bryan Adams, Jerry Lyn Williams and Will Jennings to write your songs and Kathy Mattea to do a duet with you, you would think you'd end up with a great CD...wrong! What Hallyday neglected was the fact that if you're going to sing all american blues and rock'n roll in English when you were born French speaking, you either don't worry about your accent and sound natural or you practice until you get it right. He apparently went for the second solution but he must have stopped practicing halfway through. On one verse he sounds like an American but on the next verse he'll screw up a line with his Gallic accent. As a result, his amazingly beautiful voice is wasted and you never get into the music. Exceptions are the songs "I wanna' make love to you" (a Clapton B-side which Eric gave to Hallyday whose version is much better)"Before you change your mind" and the lovely "Love affair" with Kathy Mattea. Try again Johnny! but please, don't wait another 30 years..."

Best of both worlds...

Cyril Malka | Luynes, Indre et Loire | 12/19/1999

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I bet it depends on how you guys 'over there' rate this kind of stuff. But for us, europeans, Johnny Hallyday is the closest you can get to american music, rock and blues, and still stay european.I am not sure this CD is made for american public. Some of you might find it disapointing. But for us, it has a lot of the great american sound, but still is european. Johnny could find out to mix the two kinds. As in Star Trek: He made the best of both worlds.BTW, Johnny has also made music in italian, and I can assure you than his english accent is much better than his italian... And for a french boy, his english is just great!"