The old saying is so, so true: hindsight is 20\/20. Although he was not diagnosed with prostate cancer until the year after Full Circle<\/i>, Dan Fogelberg\u2019s final album released in his lifetime (and his first studio release in almost 10 years, not including his Christmas album), one has to wonder whether he knew the writing was on the wall.<\/p>\n
Yes, Fogelberg showed a lot of introspection in his songwriting, especially telling autobiographical tales in songs like \u201cLeader Of The Band,\u201d but there is something about this disc that is haunting at times, almost like, as the title suggests, Fogelberg was returning to where he began to wrap things up musically. (And, yes, I know he was far from done writing and recording; a posthumous disc is promised for the fall of 2008.) But Full Circle<\/i> seems to serve as a good \u2013 but not great \u2013 bookend to Fogelberg\u2019s career.<\/p>\n
Opening with the maudlin instrumental \u201cHalf Moon Bay,\u201d Fogelberg quickly treads into familiar territory with \u201cWhen You\u2019re Not Near Me,\u201d a pleasant but not remarkable light-rock ballad that is pleasing enough. At times, it seems like the production on this disc is a little too much for Fogelberg \u2013 meaning, where he liked to keep things simple musically, the production added a level of complication that was unnecessary.<\/p>\n
Indeed, What makes Full Circle<\/i> a disc to be reckoned with is the one-two punch of \u201cThis Heart\u201d and \u201cReach Haven Postcard,\u201d two of Fogelberg\u2019s most emotional tracks he\u2019s done in a long time. Add into this the slightly weaker musically but just as powerful emotionally \u201cDrawing Pictures,\u201d and you quickly learn that Fogelberg had lost little of his step from his glory days, even if his vocals sounded rougher and little more pained at times.<\/p>\n \u201cIcarus Ascending\u201d could have easily been the perfect track to close this disc, as it is another tour-de-force of songwriting and performance that long-time fans of Fogelberg had come to expect. But to close it with the weaker track, a cover of Bill Martin\u2019s \u201cEarth Anthem,\u201d is a little anticlimactic, at least to this listener.<\/p>\n There are people who probably think that Fogelberg stopped recording with his 1984 album Windows And Walls<\/i>, since that was the last time his music graced the top half of the charts, though he had revisited the Adult Contemporary chart a few times. (Last time I checked, this particular disc didn\u2019t even crack the Billboard<\/i> 200 \u2013 damn shame, really.) Anyone who has followed the Fogelberg retrospective, or who is a long-time Fogelberg fan, knows differently, and they know there were some real special releases during that time that were otherwise ignored. Full Circle<\/i> rightfully can be placed in this category, and is a nice, though flawed, final release from Fogelberg before his passing in 2007.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6036],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-40809","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-dan-fogelberg","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40809","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=40809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40809"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}