Search - Melissa Manchester :: Don't Cry Out Loud

WILL MAKE YOU SMILE AGAIN...OUT LOUD!!!

Alan Russo | Cambridge, MA USA | 05/08/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Finally Arista/BMG Heritage is re-issuing some of Manchester's finest. This is the first, although Buddha re-issued "Melissa" with mixed reviews. Thank God Arista took over! Hopefully there will be a full catalog re-issue with bonus tracks. Perhaps if they sell well, Arista may be interested in releasing the material she recently recorded?!! This 1978-79 release was 7th LP for Bell/Arista and considered one of her finest, next to Melissa and Better Days & Happy Endings. I heard that Don't Cry was previously released on CD along with Melissa Manchester (her 8th LP) back in the early 80's, but I was only able to find the later on CD. In 1996, Don't Cry was re-issued in Japan along with 6 other CD's with excellent results! The quality of this 2002 release is just as great as the Japan CD. Plus it includes the B-side to Don't Cry called We Had This Time. We Had This Time was also covered by Dionne Warwick and others at the time. The packaging is excellent with lyrics and other information. All original pictures are even better. It also contains an informative introduction by Michael Hill. If you are just discovering the underated talents of MM, please start here~! She Shines Like She Should on this concept album. Marvin Gaye producer Leon Ware, produced this LP and wrote a couple of the songs with Melissa. The over all feel for this CD has warmth and soul. She glides through the optimistic dance tune Shine Like You Should and remakes The Supreme's upbeat Bad Weather (written by her idol Stevie Wonder).
Caravan is also one of my favorite songs with it's lyric of experience and growth. And of course, the big ballad title track about pride and self preservation. We must Cry Out Loud for more re-issues like this!
Great work Arista! Fans and others...Enjoy!"

Finally on CD

Robert L. Hayes | San Antonio, TX United States | 06/24/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Many thanks to Arista (I'm sure with the persistant insistence of her dedicated fans) for re-releasing this album on CD and for including "We Had This Time", the B-side of the 45 single of "Don't Cry Out Loud". One of her best in my opinion. Maybe her fans could have the same affect on Arista in getting them to do a box set release to include the beautiful Grammy nominated theme from "The Promise" called "I'll Never Say Goodbye", which has never appeared on any of her albums."

Arguably the best Melissa Manchester album

Marc200 | 06/30/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This is a cool, breezy, heartfelt and soulful Melissa Manchester album. The reviewer below who bemoans the dated quality of its sound is displaying a vast ignorance of pop history. Leon Ware (the producer of this album) is a widely-acknowledged genius, with a knack for sensual soul and pop. To dismiss this album as 70s-style filler, would mean that such legendary albums as Marvin Gaye's I Want You, Minnie Riperton's Adventures in Paradise and Ware's own Musical Massage album, all of which share the same sound, are also horribly dated rn'b filler. Yet tastemakers throughout the world hold up these albums as examples of beauty, great production, and great music.I would offer the opposing view that it is the title track of this album that is the dud. It represents the first sign of Melissa relinquishing her sexy, soulful, earthy style of singing in favour of an Ethel Mermanish belt. It also signals the path for the albums Melissa went on to make after this, including For The Working Girl, Melissa Manchester and Hey Ricky. These albums are full of prototype Celine Dion style balladry - the kind of unsubtle, manipulative tear-jerkers that emotionally stunted people find touching, or think are deep. Enjoy this album, because it represents the last helping of early Melissa - cool, fun, foxy, real, and expressive, not stuck in the MOR straitjacket that Arista was about to foist on her."