Customer Reviews

Falling In Love Again

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So here it is at last on CD, only 28 years after it was originally released. I thought it would never happen, but it has. But was it worth the wait?
It's a while since I last heard this album. I realised as soon as I put the CD on that I still knew all the words, all the musical cues, every nuance. The reason for this is that this is an album full of extremely memorable songs.
Take the title track - a mid-tempo ballad very much in the Gates style. It has a terrific melody, and quite an unusual one in the way it twists around. The lyric is perhaps sentimental, but assured, like you'd expect from David Gates, and the vocal is as distinctive as ever. It's intricately put together and played by what is essentially the members of the group Bread, minus James Griffin.
There are some interesting songs on this album. Twentieth Century Man is a piece of social commentary about contemporary life (out of date now of course but never mind) with a very catchy tune. Chingo is about drugs and fame ('All I do for Chingo is serve my sentence well/While Chingo tours the country this old roadie's in his cell), while She Was So Young is a poignant little song about an extra-marital affair between a young girl and an older man.
While I wouldn't say that this is an album devoted to hard-hitting social commentary, the subject matter lifts it above the ten love ballads you might expect from this singer.
Musically, the album is largely mid- or up-tempo. Production is clean and the arrangements good but the sound doesn't have quite the depth of say, his 'First' album. Perhaps the transfer to CD isn't quite up to scratch. It's not bad by any means, just not as good as I was expecting, since on vinyl, it always seemed to sound better than other Gates albums.
You could say that this is quite a dated album, but you couldn't deny, I think, that it has some great melodies, the likes of which you don't hear nowadays. I think it's stood the test of time pretty well and I'm delighted to finally have it on CD.

David Gates' "Falling In Love Again" album came out at the tail-end of 1979 (the album actually lists 1980 as the copyright date). One song from the album, the A-side "Where Does The Lovin' Go", appears on the readily available 2 CD Bread "Retrospective", but apart from that, it appears that the album has never been officially released on CD anywhere in the world.

Gates' first two solo albums, 1973's "First" and 1975's "Never Let Her Go" were only mild commercial successes, and compared to what Bread was accomplishing saleswise in the early '70s, they were probably considered downright flops. Bread's 1977 'reunion' album "Lost Without Your Love" was quite successful commercially, and Gates subsequently scored a couple sizable solo hits in '77-'78 with "Goodbye Girl" and "Took The Last Train". The commercial success proved to be something of a fluke--the "Falling In Love Again" album didn't even chart in Billboard's US Top 200, and it ended up being Gates' last album for Elektra, and following 1981's Arista-released "Take Me Now", Gates basically retired from the music business for the rest of the decade.

All that said, it'd be easy to suspect that "Falling In Love Again" is a last gasp hiccup from an artist past his prime and ready to hang it up, especially considering that the album's total running time barely, if even, reaches the half hour mark.

Such a short running time might get you thinking "rip off", but the brevity and conciseness of the record actually prove compelling. Gates wrote all 10 songs here himself, and it's as if someone said to David, "Okay man, you've got half an hour of space to show us what you've got." The end result is an album that uncannily demonstrates how to write insanely catchy, finely-trimmed, expertly-timed pop-rock songs.

The only song here that's even slightly 'off' is, ironically, the aforementioned "Where Does The Lovin' Go". It's not a bad demonstration of Gates' "hit ballad" formula, and melodically it's even quite memorable. But the lyrics are ultra-predictable and the song just ends up feeling too obvious and crassly-calculated. It's somehow telling that this was the album's 'major' single.

Each and every one of the other nine songs are gems. Granted, many of the songs here aren't that 'meaningful' (with a capital 'M'). And yes, many of the songs, including basically all of 'side 2', fall into the feel-good category, but they're all top-notch, making for an album that's a heck of a lot of pure fun. Just look at the little ingenious hooks Gates slips in, such as his enunciation of the word "other" on the choruses of "Starship Ride"; or his emphasis of the word "temptation" on the chorus of the hysterically cartoonish, "Get Back"-style rocker "Sweet Desire". "Chingo" is another amusing tune, with witty lyrics sung from the point of view of a free-spirited roadie--it's a country-western flavored ditty, with Dan Dugmore on steel guitar, but it also beams in calypso drums on the chorus for a tropical feel. The album-opening "Can I Call You" is an irresistibly catchy rocker, with an arresting yearning quality to it--the lyrics are quite dumb, but redeemed by the fact that Gates seems to have his tongue firmly in cheek. "20th Century Man" is a punchy, edgy rocker--it's something of a cautionary tale, with really biting lyrics. "She Was So Young" is a sighing, 3/4 time, orchestrated acoustic ballad--it's lyrically eloquent tale of a married man who has an affair with a much younger girl/ woman, vividly-detailed and more than a little heart-wrenching. "Silky" is in the same vein as "Took The Last Train", but more musically complex, with mind-boggling chord changes worthy of Steely Dan in their complexity, as well as the overall insane catchiness. The breezy title track is an amusingly corny and irresistible ballad. And the toe-tappingly catchy album-closer "The Rainbow Song" is a feel-good story-song, very witty again, with an easy-going vibe, and just plain fun.

Gates may have been running out of 'things to say'--this album is a LONG way off from "First" in terms of epic-ness and making a 'serious' artistic statement. However, he was able to compensate and make a positive out of it by letting his hair down a bit and staying in touch with his sheer feel for ultra-catchy hooks. Tip your hat to a master craftsman at work--"Falling In Love Again" is an irresistible album.

I was lucky enough to hear this album, and it is a sin that it, (along with 'Take me now'), haven't been released on CD as of yet, but I'm always seeing Bread's Greatest hits churned out in various formats.
This release is fairly good, but not on par with David Gates 'first'. The ballads are as captivating as always. 'Where does the lovin go' is usual brilliance, with a lovely melody. 'She was so young' is the stripped down ballad of the album, with sincere lyrics and an unforgettable tune. 'Falling in love again' is very short and could have been extended, but is also in the ballad style of many of Gates's other superb ballads. 'The rainbow song' and 'silky' are soft, romantic jazz numbers, with a positive slant and a hummable melody.
'Can I call you' is not so great in the verses, but makes up for it, with a really good chorus. 'Chingo' is just a bit stupid, but ok I guess. '20th century man' is just alright.
'Starship ride' is tuneless and utterly disposable. 'Sweet desire' is horrible and tries to rock a bit to much.
Still, a nice album that deserves to be re-released.

This album has been missing in action for many years - nice to see it available once again. Received quickly and in advertised condition.