Steve Miller had become a superstar during the last half of the 1970s when his albums Book Of Dreams <\/i>and Fly Like An Eagle <\/i>each sold millions of copies; he then topped it off when his Greatest Hits 1974-1978<\/i> began its journey to becoming one of the 50 biggest selling albums in United States history. That success came to a halt with his 1981 release, Circle Of Love. <\/i>In order to regain his commercial momentum, Miller hurried back into the studio to record some new music.<\/p>\n
Abracadabra<\/i> was an attempt to return to the smooth pop rock of his 1970s hit albums. It may not have had the consistent high quality of his more popular releases, but there were some memorable songs. As standalone tracks, many of the songs were enjoyable, but they did not fit together well, giving the album a disjointed feel. In the final analysis, it was an album where the individual parts were better than the whole.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if Miller had a writer\u2019s block, but the well was a little dry as he only wrote two of the ten tracks. Band members Gary Mallaber, John Massare, and Kenny Lewis co-wrote the other eight in various combinations. <\/p>\n
One of the songs Miller did contribute was the title track, which became one of his career-defining performances. It was catchy and remained in your mind. It became the last number one pop hit of his career. His other song was \u201cGive It Up,\u201d which had a slower tempo and was not as memorable.<\/p>\n
There really was not anything terrible, but on the other hand, there was nothing much of lasting substance either. \u201cKeep Me Wondering Why\u201d was a nice, if light rocker. \u201cThings I Told You\u201d was the band\u2019s attempt to move in a new wave direction that was in vogue at the time. \u201cGoodbye Love\u201d has a little country flavor stirred into the mix. \u201cWhile I\u2019m Waiting\u201d was a slower acoustic piece that probably should not have closed the album. The strongest track was \u201cCool Magic,\u201d which returned Miller to his strengths with a strong melody and smooth vocal.<\/p>\n
Abracadabra <\/i>was enjoyable but not The Steve Miller Band at their best. It did achieve the goal of producing a commercially successful album as it reached platinum status. If you want the pop-oriented Steve Miller at his most creative, then any of his late 1970s releases are preferable. Abracadabra <\/i>is an album that filled in the gaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":31450,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5684],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43152","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-steve-miller-band","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43152","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43152"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43152"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}