Customer Reviews

Going for Broke

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

 

 

This 1984 release was Eddy's best project and included the very popular hit "Romancing The Stone" which made it onto the dance music, rock, R&B and reggae charts simultaneously. This was also his most prolific project with songs like "Ire Harry", "Rock You Good" and "Come On Let Me Love You" serving as fine examples of Eddy's eclectic musicianship and artistry.

In 1984, Eddy Grant, already a Reggae super-star, confounded critics who thought his career was over with this funky reggae album, adding a distinctly mid-80's favour to the album, without taking way from it's fundamental reggae.

The album begins with Romancing The Stone, the soundtrack title for the adventure movie starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, setting an exciting mood.

It go's on to the funky rap-reggae Boys In The Street, the typical Grant reggae-rocker Till I Can't Take Love No More, the moody Blue Wave and several other great hits like the catchy Only Heaven Knows , the fast-paced Political Bassa and the funky and fun Ire Harry .

A fantastic Caribbean mellow classic.

Eddy Grant made a memorable mark with the tune Electric Avenue in the early 80's (who can forget the heavy back beat synthesized sound).The next to follow was this little soundtrack ditty Romancing The Stone from the film by the same title.Infectious, memorable, highly enjoyable, and maybe overplayed during it's release in 1984... Grant has always been misunderstood as an artist by some critics who expected him to produce music strictly relating to his Jamaican roots or just plain expected his music to be pure Reggae such as Bob Marley's. Instead, Grant utilized some of the latest music/sound technology of the time and melded it with instant likeable pop, funk, a hint of R&B, and , oh yeah, some of the Jamaican-Reggae influences. This experimentation or hybrid of different styles is what made Grant the exception or stand out from the rest of mainstream Reggae and Jamaican rhythms. This is what led him to really hit different marks at the same time and crossover to several popular music formats or genres...While he may not have had one of the "best" singing voices, it was his extremely unique vocal characteristic that made him sound like no other. Some singers may not have the strongest or most flexible cords but they possess that something special no other artist does. To this day I have yet to hear any other male vocalist to have that distinguishable rough and raw edge like Grant's ! The rest of the tracks don't quite pop out like Romancing The Stone but rather have their own distinctive styles and are nevertheless very enjoyable and loaded with originality. I personally enjoyed and favored his previous release Killer On The Rampage which had so many excellent tracks (including Electric Avenue) over this release Going For Broke. Going For Broke is a good album, a very good one ideed...but it's not as highly recommended as Killer On The Rampage.

Eddy Grant remains a bit of an enigma in his efforts, but he surely offers his own style that requires a discerning taste. If you are looking for pure reggae in his music, you will not find Bob Marley or Steel Pulse like roots reggae, but instead a blend of reggae, island, soca and rock influence. With a beautiful studio on Montserrat (where The Police recorded Ghost in the Machine) he is left to his own devices to create wonderful music and incorporate unique instrumentation to create his own sound. He has a unique singing style and often hilarious lyrics...

Going Broke was introduced in 1984 following Electric Avenue from 1982. This album is not as robust at Electric Avenue but does offer the driving "Boys in the Street" and a nice rock hook in "Come on let me love you" with Eddy's personal guitar style and sound usually using a "Fuzz Face" distortion unit. And of course, "Romancing the Stone" is reminiscent of the movie with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner (you can hear Eddy's music being played with they both show up in a small town and meet the local drug kingpin who helps them escape).

If you like Eddy Grant, I recommend looking for some of his later work from 1990 Barefoot Soldier and 1993 Soca Baptism. You will find the styles diverse and entertaining, as well as a smattering of humor filled lyrics from many of the songs. Like The Clash, he often incorporates political messages in his music. Barefoot Soldier includes "Gimme Hope Johanna", "Barefoot Soldier", "Eulogy for a Living Man", and "Wildcat"; I maintain that this was one of his best albums (as another reviewer mentioned, his lyrics will put a smile on your face "... she was a wild cat, a pain in the rectum, she was an emotional bind" it is hard to find island music like that). Also, Soca Baptism is probably his best work. You can hear the Trinidad and Tobago influence and the Carnivale sound. It is a diverse album but you will find yourself compelled to dance to Ra Ti Ray, Sugar Bum Bum, Get Up and Dance, they are infectious.

Enjoy his work for what it is! A lot of it is great to listen to in the late days of summer! Get Up and Dance!!!

This album is proof that Eddy Grant is multi-talented when it comes to crossing over from one genre to another. While the hit "Telepathy" was the first tune which got me hooked on the entire album. Some other catchy tunes like "Only Heaven knows," "Ire harry," "Political Bassa-Bassa" are a sure way to get anybody dancing and jamming the night away. The whole album is packed with rhythm and melody. As many know this album to be a Reggae/Calypso Jammer, some songs are rock and pop oriented. "Romancing The Stone," and "Come On Let Me Love You" are audible proof of that. While many of Eddy Grant's Cd Albums are easy to find and readily accessible. "Going For Broke" still remains to be his only hit cd that's out of print. Fortunately, these rare jewels can now be purchased online at Eddy's MP3 Store.

Woah this is better than Killer On The Rampage and i didnt expect any Eddy Grant to be better than that;

The real killers on this album are

Romancing On The Stone

Only Heaven Knows

Rock You Good

Wow this album rocks!!

Personally, I liked "Electric Avenue", wasn't motivated to buy the album, and thought "I Don't Wanna Dance" was a poor choice for a follow up. Flash in the pan, I thought. Then a friend played me his new album, "Going For Broke". What an album. It has now been one of my favorites for almost 23 years. After kicking off with the exuberant "Romancing the Stone", he kicks into even higher gear with "Boys In the Street" (with its imagery about being "a fly in excreta" - try finding that in any other rock song!), "Come On Let Me Love You", the heartfelt "Till I Can't Take Love No More", and the eminently danceable "Political Bassa-Bassa" (which I still don't know the meaning of, but it dares you not to move!!). Admittedly, the album drops off a bit at this point, but "Telepathy", "Only Heaven Knows", and "Ire Harry" are still very listenable. "Rock You Good" can be taken more than one way, while "Blue Wave" cools the whole thing down. All the songs contain examples of Grant's guitar virtuosity, and the album can be danced to, or just listened to. The mixture of rock and reggae was an entry point for me into the musical forms from the islands, and it is a solid album, one that unfortunately sealed Grant's fate in the US, he never charted again. But fortunately, we are left with this artifact from the 80s, that is a prime example of a genre-busting winner that, sadly, no one at the time understood, but now stands to me as one of the great left-field hits of that era.

I was after this record for many years. I had to pay too much money for this out of print record but I could get these songs I was dying for:

Til I can't take no more, Boys in the street, Romancing the stone, Rock you good.

If you followed Grant and you avoid compilations, well, here it is!

THIS IS EDDIE GRANT ON WELFARE HERE W/ HIS MUSIC PRODUCERS SLEEPWALKING THRU OUT THE RECORDING PROCESS,THIS ALBUM JUST SOUNDS PLAIN CHEAP W/ THE EXCEPTION OF ROMANCING THE STONE...IF YOU REALLY WANT THAT SONG JUST BUY EDDIE GRANTS HIT COLLECTION AND DONT WASTE YOUR HARD EARNED CASH ON THIS MESS OF A POOR ALBUM....THIS ALBUM JUST PLAIN BLOWS...SUB PAR REGGAE HERE FOLKS.

FILE UNDER: TTL. SH.T.

Having already demolished universally high expectations for the synth-reggae style with his previous opus, Killer an da Rampage, Eddy Grant sought to break hearts and butcher puppies with his doctorate in musical funkiness, the globally-reviled "Going for Broke". With one hand dipped in his questionable Jamaican heritage and the other up his dreadlocked arse, Eddy managed to effectively kill off both his career and set Reggae back 10 years. To add to the humiliation, his song "Romancing the Stone" was prominently displayed at the end of the dreadful Kathleen Turner when she was edible star vehicle "Jewel of the Nile." Since JOTN was a sequel to RTS, everyone thought that Eddy was on crack for mistitling the "hit song" that played over the credits the name of the last film and not the one that they'd just seen. No matter, within 6 months everyone had forgotten that any of this treacle had ever come to pass.

Yes, going for broke didn't pay off for Daddy CBS very well at all. Now the CD is out of print, too, and you'll have to pay a lot to deserve hearing this masterpiece because the rest of the civilized world has deemed it utter garbage.

And Eddy Grant? He's probably still playing Jamaican free fairs and hosting the local Kingston area version of "Ag-Day".

See also:

Puff Daddy, Shalamar, Rockwell, Johnny Gill, Big Mountain, etc.