I always kind of feel sorry for Richard Marx. The man is plainly
\ntalented at writing good, solid, pop songs with hooks you could
\nland a blue whale with, but because he’s got a pretty face he can’t
\nbuy respect, and never
\ncould<\/i>. To me, there’s always a parallel with Rick
\nSpringfield, also a pretty decent pop singer who was too cute to be
\nconsidered good.<\/p>\n
\nRush Street<\/i>, Marx’s 1991 CD, was the closest he ever got to
\nbreaking out of his “cute boy” mode and proving he could put
\ntogether a tight, close, adult CD. And while it has its weak
\nmoments, there are times when this is as good as pop music
\ngets.<\/p>\n
The CD starts with “Playing With Fire”, kicking out the stops
\nright off the bat with a hard rocker, and that sets the tone for
\nthe rest of the CD. Whatever Marx
\ndoes<\/i>, he throws himself into, and it shows on other harder
\nsongs like “Hands In Your Pocket”, “Streets Of Pain”, and the Billy
\nJoel-reminiscent piano line of “I Get No Sleep”, where he hits his
\nmark. Of course, trying that hard means he misses: I’m still not
\nsure what “Love Unemotional” is supposed to be, exactly, but it’s
\nnot very good at it, and “Superstar” is a trite throwaway that
\nwould have been best left off
\nRush Street<\/i> (which is a bit long, anyway).<\/p>\n
Marx’s reputation, such as it is, was made with love songs,
\nhowever, and
\nRush Street<\/i> is no exception. Interestingly enough, almost
\nall of them are excellent, especially “Your World”, “Chains Around
\nMy Heart”, “Calling You”, and “Take This Heart”. The only weak
\npoint, oddly, is what was the second single off the CD, “Keep
\nComing Back”. It drags badly,.meandering like a bad come on line in
\na cheap bar.<\/p>\n
What is most interesting, and makes one wonder about what might
\nhave been, is the song that was the first single released,
\n“Hazard”, a story in song about a man who might have been framed
\nfor a murder. In it, Marx shows the genesis of what might have
\nbecome a Harry Chapin-like ability to create musical narratives;
\nsadly, this promise was never fulfilled.<\/p>\n
\nRush Street<\/i> is a documentation of a career that might have
\nbeen, an attempt to reach beyond boundaries that ultimately failed.
\nStill, as a pop album, it’s a solid, almost brilliant piece of work
\nthat’s worth a listen or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":27700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7441],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39078","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-richard-marx","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39078","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=39078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39078\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39078"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}