Customer Reviews

Can't Hold Back

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I already owned Eddie Money's Super Hits album and I have listened to his Greatest Hits Sound of Money album and I like them both, but that wasn't enough. I wanted to hear some of his regular albums that had both hits and non-hits included. My first stop just happens to be this mid-80s gem entitled Can't Hold Back.

Included on Can't Hold Back is the major hit "Take Me Home Tonight," the inspirational hit "I Wanna Go Back," and the very underrated minor hit "Endless Nights." If I'm not mistaken, "We Should Be Sleeping" was also a minor hit. But the greatness doesn't stop there because there are many great non-hits that also make their voice heard on Can't Hold Back, making this a worthy all-around album. My favorite of the non-hits is "Bring On The Rain," and the title track isn't bad either.

The only complaint I have with Can't Hold Back is that I wasn't crazy about two of the songs, "Stranger In A Strange Land" and "One Chance." So that means that I liked eight of the ten songs on the album, and that would equal four out of five stars if I was rating Can't Hold Back in that matter, but I'm not.

"Take Me Home Tonight" was one of the biggest hits of the year (1986), "I Wanna Go Back" is one of my favorite songs of all time, mainly because of its lyrics that a lot of people including myself can relate to, and all in all, Can't Hold Back is probably one of the most overlooked albums from the 1980's. If you like classic rock, don't hold back on getting this album because it's more than worth the money.

I've followed Eddie Money for many years but didn't become a fan/critic until his 1986 Can't Hold Back release. This should be the first cd you buy from him because it's his most consistent. If you only want his hits get his greatest hits. On Can't Hold Back, Eddie did some of his best work: "Take Me Home Tonight", "I Wanna Go Back", "Endless Nights" were all top 40 hits. But, unlike his other albums he has strong non-hits like "We Should Be Sleeping", "Bring on the Rain", "Stranger in a Strange Land" and "One Love." After Can't Hold Back, Eddie slips with Nothing to Lose (1988) being a re-tread of Can't Hold Back. In 1991, he released another cd that REALLY wasn't very good and his 1995 cd was just plain awful. I didn't bother to buy his 1999 cd. So, I'd say everything from 1988's Nothing to Lose back to his debut, Eddie Money (1977), is worth looking into.

Even though I didn't purchase this CD from Amazon (I actually bought my current copy of it back in 1992), this is DEFINITELY one of Eddie Money's greatest albums of all time. Just about every song on this CD deserved to be a smash hit -- especially "One Chance", where he drives the vocal tracks straight home with absolute heart-felt emotion and finesse. He also paired up with Mr. Mister's Richard Page and Steve George on this one, who had provided the background harmony vocals. I especially like the ending of "One Chance", where the full band is faded out and Richard and Steve's vocal tracks finish the ballad with "Can't let it go on this way...(CLAP!!) Gotta get out of the rain..." Each and every time I hear those lines at the end of "One Chance", the hair stands up on the back of my neck and it sends a quivering chill up and down my spine!

Aside from "One Chance", pretty much most of the other tracks here are classic songs by the Money Man. My favorite track of the hit list here is "Take Me Home Tonight", which is almost as hard-hitting as "Walk On Water" from 1988's Nothing to Lose release. The latter is also a good album to pick up, and I have a copy of it as well.

Anyway, if any of you are into that hard-driving, 1980s-style, power-ballad rock style of music then I would highly reccommend this album for your media collection. Besides, after getting to hear "One Chance" for the very first time back in 1989 (after getting my first cassette copy of this album), I once had this short-lived inner desire to meet Mr. Eddie Money. But that, of course, is nothing more than wishful thinking.

Until next time, rock on....

!986 brought us Eddie Money's 6th studio affair "Can't Hold Back" #20, another comeback album for Eddie. This album produced 4 hits, the popular hit was with Ronnie Spector on "Take Me Home Tonight", #4 hot 100 and #1 mainstream rock, the swift ballad "I Wanna Go Back", #14 hot 100 and #3 mainstream rock, "Endless Nights", #21 hot 100 and #10 mainstream rock and the hard edged rocker "We Should be Sleeping", #18 mainstream rock and #90 hot 100.
Other tunes I really liked were, the smooth title track, and album track rockers "Stranger In A Strange Land" and "Calm Before the Storm". Eddie took another 2 years before releasing his modest "Nothing To Lose" in 1988.

Eddie Money's 1986 album including his largest hit TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT is also one of all time favorite albums. It is a nice album to explore Eddie Money music further than his compilation. I bought this album when Take Me home Tonight just reached top 5 of the Billboard single chart. Now I like this album a lot more than I did in 1986 probably because this sort of well-crafted pop rock is hard to come by these days. Other than Take Me..., I like hard-edged WE SHOULD BE SLEEPING, power ballads such as I WANNA HOLD BACK and ENDLESS NIGHTS. It is recommended for mid 80's pop rock fans that love Survivor, Heart,Starship and John Cafferty.

This was a great comeback cd for Eddie..Of course almost everyone has this listed as the most popular Eddie Money cd. I believe this was the first time in his career that he didn't write his own hits. This was also a change in sound for Eddie. After the incredible No Control cd and the not so incredible Where's The Party cd he seemed to turn into a pop star.. Take Me Home Tonight of course was and still is one of the best tracks of all time , I Wanna Go Back is a inspirational tune and everyone loves this track and Endless Nights i believe was over looked but it still got plenty of radio time and was a great hit single. We Should Be Sleeping is a rockin track and the video he made for this was great also. Although this was a platinum cd and was popular it appeared that almost every song sounded similar. Anyway the hit singles made this disc great and really changed Eddie into a full fleged pop star.

eddie money's can't hold back cd is great!it's full of strong meaningful and relateable tunes! there are no weak tracks here! 3 top ten singles! i can't hold back should have been released as a single , it had the potential to be a top ten hit! his voice was great also! this is eddie's best cd. other great cd's by him are 1999 ready eddie , no control and right here. sound of money is great also.

this is his comeback album in a way, due to the lifestyle, he didnt have anything good till this in 1986. everyone knows the track- "take me home tonight(be my baby). the duet with ronnie spector] this song made it to the top 10. then came my favorite ballad mid-song, "endless nights" awesome song. then theres the rocker "we should be sleeping" then some of this album has filler track but id get the album just for these tracks alone! pure rock and roll with charm

He is soooooo underrated, I'm surprised he didn't sell a lot more records than he did. He could have at least sold 200 million records world wide. That would have got him a spot on the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame. Anyway excellent album. There really isn't one song that I don't like by him. All his songs are outstanding.

Every now and again, a pop music album comes along that transcends the temporary nature of the genre, and has a lasting impact on the listener. Eddie Money's CAN'T HOLD BACK is such an album. On an intellectual level I can pick it apart; emotionally it remains irresistible to me - the moreso because the songs for which it is known by the general public are only the tip of its creative iceberg. This is just a very enjoyable album, and more importantly, one that hasn't dated - which is more than I can say about most 80s pop.

The album starts with the song that made it famous, "Take Me Home Tonight", a bellowing, extremely catchy and sexually charged duet with Ronnie "The Original Bad Girl of Rock `n Roll" Spector that dominated the airwaves for what seemed like aeons when I was a teen. It's a terrific song, but those who buy the album on the strength of this duet will be surprised at the depth and enjoyability of what comes after it.

It's said that any decent singer can make you feel nostalgic, but only a great singer can make you feel nostalgic for things you haven't done. I don't know if Eddie Money qualifies as great, but on "I Wanna Go Back" he made me long for my high school years...when I was 14 years old and still had plenty of them left ahead of me. That's pretty impressive. Likewise, he transcended the obvious message of "One Love" with a stucatto delivery and that half-sleepy, half-passionate delivery which made him famous. On "Endless Nights" and "One More Chance", he elevated what could have been cliché-ridden songs about the anguish of failed romances with some clever lyrics and, as before, a delivery that seems so perfectly syncopated with the music that you just have to tip your hat to the album's engineers and mixer Richie Zito.

The album's second side (yes, I still refer to it that way, having originally bought it on tape) switches up the gears a bit, opening with the powerful and underrated "We Should Be Sleeping", which makes the excellent point that a couple's energy is better spent making love than fighting.
After that comes "Bring on the Rain", a tune about being a transplanted Easterner in Southern California, which easily could have been released as a single, and which appeals to me greatly...being a transplanted Easterner in Southern California. The song's title track is fairly ordinary, and "Stranger in a Strange Land" is so totally 80s - with its somewhat hollow background vocals and coldly mechanical drum-machine beat - that it feels dated. Likewise, "Calm Before the Storm" is forgettable and ends the album on a ho-hum note, but by this time it scarcely matters.

As I said at the beginning of this review, there are some albums that are more than the sum of their parts. CAN'T HOLD BACK is a gushingly sentimental, occasionally trite pop album that relentlessly beats the pinata that is love in the hopes of producing some lyrical candy. Ordinarily this would annoy me to no end, but thanks to Money's great, somehow distinctly blue-collar delivery, and to some very pleasing harmonies and background vocals, it works. Big time.