Usually when an artist puts out a double album, it’s for the
\npurpose of doubling the price of the album while having to pad it
\nwith twice as much crap. Sad, yes, but a typical state of affairs
\nin the recording industry, whether it’s 1979 or 1999. This was a
\nparticularly painful epidemic in the late seventies and early
\neighties; I mean, who can forget the Robert Stigwood
\nSgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band<\/i>? If they hadn’t gone to
\ntwo discs, we might have missed Peter Frampton mooing his way
\nthrough “The Long And Winding Road”.<\/p>\n
However — and this is a big however — sometimes an artist puts
\nout a double CD because he has enough to say to make it worthwhile.
\nHappily, Dan Fogelberg’s
\nThe Innocent Age<\/i> falls in that category. Notwithstanding a
\nfew small miscues, this is a solid piece of work, catching
\nFogleberg in freeze frame in his transition between being just
\nanother part of the seventies’ California mellow sound, to being a
\nserious, underrated songwriter, a countrified Harry Chapin who has
\nhad the good grace not to die.<\/p>\n
Everyone knows the singles. Let us merely note that “Leader Of
\nThe Band,” “Run For The Roses” and “Hard To Say” exist, say they’re
\npretty damn good songs, and move on. If you’ve never heard them,
\nyou’re either under 15 or you’ve been living under a rock for
\nthirty years. The gem of the widely heard songs, however, is “Same
\nOld Lang Syne,” one of the most bittersweet songs ever written
\nabout love lost and never regained. This documentation of a true
\nexperience of Fogelberg’s is naked emotion, wistful and keen-edged.
\n(I find it fascinating this is used by a lot of ‘lite rock’
\nstations as a Christmas song. Do these people even
\nlisten<\/b> to the lyrics?)<\/p>\n
To really appreciate
\nThe<\/i>
\nInnocent Age<\/i>, though, you have to listen to it -as an
\nalbum-, one piece of work from the beginning of Disc One to the end
\nof Disc Two. From the opening chiming guitar of “Nexus” to the
\nelegant piano of “In The Passage,” the driving rock of “Lost In The
\nSun” to the expressive vocals of “The Lion’s Share,” the power of
\n“Times Like These” to the almost sinister “Empty Cages,” this CD
\nalmost never falters. When the closing chords of “Ghosts” die away,
\nyou know you’ve had an experience. There are a few small miscues;
\n“Only The Heart May Know,” a duet with Emmylou Harris, drags badly,
\nas does “The Sand And The Foam,” but they’re minor problems at
\nbest. From the first note to the last, this is country-rock
\nbrilliance, further cementing Fogelberg as the most
\nunderappreciated solo performer of the seventies and eighties.<\/p>\n
This album is worth the price. (And thanks to CBS’ discount
\npolicies, the price is lower than you’d expect.) Go get it, and get
\nsurprised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":25056,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6036],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36261","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dan-fogelberg","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36261","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36261"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36261\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36261"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36261"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36261"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36261"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}