A year ago, when I reviewed Christopher Cross’s album
\nWalking In Avalon<\/i>, I raised the question of why this guy had
\nfallen out of public favor. After all, he was still producing the
\nsame light pop with powerful hooks that he had become famous for on
\nhis 1979 self-titled debut album.<\/p>\n
It’s been some time since Cross has gotten his turn here, so
\ninto the Pierce Memorial Archives for
\nChristopher Cross<\/i> – and while I can’t say I’ve discovered
\nwhy he’s not a superstar anymore, it’s a little clearer to me why
\nhe became so popular at that time in music.<\/p>\n
Cross’s gift as a songwriter and as a musician is simply
\nexplained: He knows how to write a good song, and then deliver the
\nmaterial. (Sounds simple, but for each band that figures out how to
\ndo it, there are dozens that can’t.) There’s a reason why songs
\nlike “Sailing” have remained in people’s memories for 20 years.
\nWithout a good musical melody behind it that allowed people to
\ndrift away in their own thoughts, you and I probably wouldn’t
\nremember the track if it came to us on a ’70s compilation album.
\nBut that’s just it: Cross
\ndid<\/i> write an excellent song, and that’s why it has lasted so
\nlong.<\/p>\n
Listening to this album, a flood of memories came back to me
\nfrom when I was nine years old. I remember hearing songs like “Ride
\nLike The Wind” become big hits while camped out in front of the
\nradio. I remember how “Sailing” and “Never Be The Same” quickly
\nbecame favorites over the airwaves – and, thanks to this album, I
\nremembered the fourth single I had forgotten about all this time,
\n“Say You’ll Be Mine”.<\/p>\n
Of the remaining tracks, a few disappoint just because they
\ndon’t rise to the same levels as the better-known tracks (“Poor
\nShirley,” “Spinning”), while others make me wonder why we didn’t
\nhear more of these at the time (“Minstrel Gigolo,” “I Really Don’t
\nKnow Anymore”). With one or two exceptions, Cross constantly was
\nhitting the pop rock target – and had nearly dead aim on the
\nbull’s-eye.<\/p>\n
And therein lies one explanation for Cross’s success. Four
\nwords: right place, right time. If you really get into
\nChristopher Cross<\/i>, you could argue that it was like the
\nDoobie Brothers had they been located in Texas. (Michael McDonald’s
\ncontributions to this album help a little bit.) Both Cross and the
\nDoobies experienced great success around this time (granted, the
\nDoobies had experienced success for much of the ’70s).<\/p>\n
I’m not saying that Cross tried to clone the Doobies; I can hear
\nmany differences between
\nChristopher Cross<\/i> and
\nMinute By Minute<\/i>, for example. And I don’t want to discount
\nCross’s talents by any means; I do like this album on its own
\nterms. But I do wonder if the level of success Cross experienced
\nwould have been as high had the public’s taste in music been a
\nlittle different at that time.<\/p>\n
Gee, I think I’ve dug myself into a hole here… but the overall
\nmessage is clear.
\nChristopher Cross<\/i> is an album that not only justifies the
\nsuperstardom he all-too-briefly experienced, but is still enjoyable
\n20 years later. More importantly, it leaves us asking yet again:
\nWhy isn’t this man still a bigger star than he is now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27586,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6254],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-38961","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-christopher-cross","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38961","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=38961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38961"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}