If I had been active in the music industry in 1983, I don’t
\nthink I would have wanted to trade places with Christopher Cross
\nfor anything in the world. Here’s a guy who had just come off
\nstellar success with his debut album, winning five Grammys for his
\nwork. He was almost constantly on the radio with songs like “Ride
\nLike The Wind” and “Sailing”. If this wasn’t enough, he won an
\nAcademy Award for his contribution to the film
\nArthur<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, it all sounds great on paper (okay, computer screen…
\nwhatever…). But when it came time for Cross to work on his second
\nalbum, the pressure that had to be on him to deliver surely was
\nintense. Screw the “sophomore slump” I keep talking about; Cross
\nwould probably have to serve up Jesus himself as a backing vocalist
\nto live up to people’s expectations.<\/p>\n
That album,
\nAnother Page<\/i>, was seen as a commercial disappointment, even
\nthough it sold (if I remember my numbers correctly) about 3 million
\ncopies. Artistically, while this album has some classic songs (and
\nI’m not just talking about the ones that got radio play), it is
\nindeed lacking. I’m stopping short of calling the album
\ndisappointing, ’cause it’s by no means a failure… but it seemed
\nlike Cross ran out of gas.<\/p>\n
The two hits off
\nAnother Page<\/i> still sound fresh – one track, “Think Of
\nLaura,” actually sounds more in its environment now that you don’t
\nhear it played every five minutes or tied to
\nGeneral Hospital<\/i>. (For the record, the song was written
\nabout a deceased friend of Cross’s, not for the television soap. It
\nwas coincidence that the whole “Luke & Laura” thing was going
\non at that time.) Now that I’ve had the chance to hear the words of
\nthe song without mentally tieing the song to anything, I’ve got to
\nadmit: the lyrics are some of the most powerful and emotional I’ve
\nheard in some time. If there’s a way to be immortalized by song,
\nthis isn’t a bad example at all.<\/p>\n
The other track, “All Right,” sounds like it could have been a
\nleftover from the
\nChristopher Cross<\/i> sessions, right down to the appearance of
\nMichael McDonald (who also guested on the first album). It’s not a
\nbad track, though I’ll freely admit it’s a little more lightweight
\nthan the singles from
\nChristopher Cross<\/i>. But it’s an enjoyable track, so I’m
\nwilling to cut it a little slack.<\/p>\n
There are some pleasant surprises awaiting you on
\nAnother Page<\/i>. Tracks like “No Time For Talk” (which has
\nsubtle ties to “Ride Like The Wind”), “Deal ‘Em Again” and “Talking
\nIn My Sleep” show that sometimes the brightest nuggets of gold
\naren’t the ones that get the airplay.<\/p>\n
There are two distinct problems with
\nAnother Page<\/i>, though. First, I tend to think that Cross
\nrelies on guest musicians too much on this album. Granted,
\nsometimes you might not catch their presence unless you’re reading
\nthe liner notes. But I tend to think that the material would have
\nstood on its own just as well without overreliance on Don Henley,
\nArt Garfunkel, J.D. Souther, Karla Bonoff… and even McDonald.
\nIt’s almost like he’s brought back as a “good luck charm” for this
\ndisc. (Admittedly, his contribution to “All Right” I liked.)<\/p>\n
Second, the songwriting on this disc, in general, is kind of
\nuninspired and lackluster. “Baby Says No,” a track with Beach Boy
\nCarl Wilson, probably should have been the highlight of this disc;
\ninstead, it tends to drag and doesn’t really allow the listener to
\nget into it. The same could be said for songs like “Nature Of The
\nGame,” “Words Of Wisdom” and “What Am I Supposed To Believe”.
\nThey’re okay as background music, but there’s really not a lot of
\nsubstance to them.<\/p>\n
I admit I’m kind of walking on eggshells a bit, seeing this is
\nthe first output from Cross I’ve heard that I was disappointed in.
\nBut I think that no matter what he had put out, people were going
\nto see the negative in it. (These days, we call this “Hootie And
\nThe Blowfish” syndrome.) Even if Cross had met people’s
\nexpectations, that would have caused listeners to raise the bar
\neven higher for the next outing… and that would have been a
\ndamned impossible feat to accomplish. So, in a way, maybe it’s good
\nthat Cross got this out of his system, and forced people to throw
\naway their expectations and take future releases at face value.<\/p>\n
\nAnother Page<\/i> is by no means a bad album, and still has signs
\nof why Cross became such a star in the early ’80s. But it did
\nrepresent a step backward for him. Whether it was his own personal
\ncircumstances or expectations shoving him backward, I don’t quite
\nknow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[6254],"rating":[5614],"class_list":["post-36607","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-christopher-cross","rating-rating-c-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36607","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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36607"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36607"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}