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29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Carly Simon's Breakaway Eighties Album!, August 25, 2000
Carly Simon straddled the world between folk and pop music in the early 1970s and gradually emerged from the shadow of other folk titans to become a pop singer of verve and moment, earning herself a place in the pantheon of very successful singers like Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, and a number of others like Carol King who were on the pop charts and in the folk clubs earlier in their career. This album, released after a long absence from the scene in the mid-eighties, represented her re-emergence onto the scene after the break-up of her long stormy marriage to James Taylor. And was this ever a smash, with several hits, including "Coming Around Again", which was specifically written for the soundtrack for the movie "Heartburn" starring Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep. Yet there are also a number of other interesting, provocative, and beautiful selections here, including "The Stuff that Dreams Are Made Of", a song that also received a lot of air play, and "Two Hot Girls", a racy sexy song about two thirty-something women out "looking for love". My personal favorite here is "Do The Walls Come Down', a plea to keep the passion in a love affair as the two get a little too familiar to keep the mystery going, and also the finale of "Itsy Bitsy Spider", which starts out school-kiddish but segues into a reprise of "Coming Around Again", giving a feeling of a completed journey on the album and a nice sense of artistic closure to the song cycle. "Coming Around Again" was her very successful vehicle for regaining her audience and popularity, which she used to great advantage in the years since. It is one of her best and most autobiographical confessional albums, and it gives us an interesting vantage point with which to understand her better. This is a great album by a maturing artist who is often under-appreciated. This is one I heartily recommend. Enjoy
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