Hard Way [Import]

Steve Earle | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 28, 2000)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Mca UK
• ASIN: B0000242HW
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #687,207 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Other Kind

2. Promise You Anything

3. Esmeralda's Hollywood

4. Hopeless Romantics

5. This Highway's Mine (Roadmaster)

6. Billy Austin

7. Justice in Ontario

8. Have Mercy

9. When the People Find Out

10. Country Girl

11. Regular Guy

12. West Nashville Boogie

13. Close Your Eyes

Editorial Reviews

Special low price import edition of his 1990 album released through MCA. 'I defend The Hard Way to the death, because I almost died in the process of making it', Steve Earle told a reporter in 2000 & he wasn't just being melodramatic. Earle's well-documented addiction to heroin & cocaine was spiraling out of control in 1990 while he was holed up in Memphis recording The Hard Way. 13 tracks in all. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Solid-to-Spectacular Set o' Songs, February 23, 2006

By 

J. Gemmill "Fan of music, movies and more." (Oreland, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hard Way (Audio CD)

This probably ranks as Steve's most overlooked album--hell, it's been deleted here in the States. Why? To be honest, I don't have a clue. It's a solid-to-spectacular 13-song set containing such long-lasting classics as "The Other Kind," "Promise You Anything," "Billy Austin," "Have Mercy" and "Justice in Ontario," which I rate amongst the best tracks Steve's ever recorded. Echoing "Copperhead Road," it compares and contrasts the story of Jim Donnelly (lynched a hundred years ago for a crime he didn't commit) to a more recent occurence in Ontario, where witnesses to a murder were brought up on charges and convicted. There's no saving grace, no kicker--just the cold, hard truth. In fact, "Justice" is at the heart of this album, following the Springsteen-like "Billy Austin" and preceding "Have Mercy," another overlooked gem. "Gem" is probably the wrong word... it's an addict's tale, true, but it does what the government and newspapers continually fail to do: Places a human face on statistics. Like the album as a whole, it's a compassionate, unflinching look at the dark side of the human spirit.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Hard Way, Indeed...., September 14, 2005

By 

Jeffrey A. Hopson (Garland, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Hard Way (Audio CD)

This was the last Steve Earle cd I thoroughly enjoyed and incidentally, was the last one he did (that we're aware of...)while indulging in the "ecstacies" of drug addiction. This Steve was emaciated, unpredictable, and, in my opinion, at the peak of his creativity. It was the last recording session that incorporated that trademark 80's Steve Earle sizzle : razor sharp, digital production, with what I consider to be the best version of the Dukes ever assembled, Steve's fiery, angry and deliberate vocal delivery, and guitar power that peeled the paint off the walls. Man, I miss that. The only "political" reference would be the anti-death penalty "Billy Austin" in which Earle sings, in the first person, about a 29 yr old that's "quarter Cherokee I'm told" who kills a service station attendant while robbing the place and won't say "...I don't deserve to die". Earle's gift has always been putting flesh on stories about real people in real life, dealing with real situations without being "preachy" and this work follows that direction. "Have Mercy" is a little collage of three different stories in which reasonably good people do bad things for reasons that we tend to offer a little mercy to once we've heard their perspectives. The opening track, "The Other Kind", is my favorite with classic lines galore: "I'm the apple of my Momma's eye, and my Daddy's worst fears realised". "Esmerelda's Hollywood" is a truly great piece of penmanship in which the title character is representative of the many young female hopefuls who came to Tinsel Land with big dreams and wound up ghosts, haunting the corner of Hollywood and Vine. I don't like the stuff Earle has done after "El Corazon" as it is too lo-fi and garagy sounding with Earle mumbling and hardly singing at all; I dearly love everything from "The Hard Way" back: full of fire, hunger, and an intense desire to portray simple life as if it were on the big screen of a small town drive-in. John Steinbeck would have been proud.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A darkly literate tour de force!, February 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Hard Way (Audio CD)

*The Hard Way* may be the album that cost Earle his job with MCA, but for music fans looking for genuinely hard hitting lyrics supported by high-power guitar and drum work, it's one of the best albums any artist in any genre has ever produced. If you've only experienced Steve Earle's recent work, this album is a critical addition to your collection. *The Hard Way* is a definitive masterpiece of pre-Warner Bros. Steve Earle.