Customer Reviews

How About Now

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

I'm a long time fan, going back to L&M, seeing the 'High Adventure' tour, and sticking by Kenny ever since. It's normal for folks going through a painful breakup to feel the need to reinvent themselves, but the country twang makes me cringe (and I'm a country fan, too). Maybe on one cut for fun, but it just doesn't feel right especially with the (where did they come from?) strings stuck in the middle of This Too Will Pass. It's like Kenny's fumbling around trying to find something that works, obviously analogous to what his wounded post-divorce ego is doing. This collection needs a strong dose of Richard Marx on more than one song (check out I Miss Us and The One That Got Away on 'It's About Time', now those are powerful, lyrical, angst-ridden songs). I feel the real Kenny by just reading the well-written lyrics rather than by listening to this confused music. The best hope is that he means what he says in the last cut, One Last Goodbye Song. Even the up-tempo cuts lack the pure joy that I know Kenny can deliver. When he finds himself again, let's see a CD titled 'Awakening' to celebrate that Kenny's back, enhanced by a new maturity, insight, excitement about life's possibilities, and great cohesive music. Sorry, I just can't listen to this one over and over.

Kenny Loggins has a talent that is hard to beat. The songs on this CD mark a transition in his life and people of all ages who have loved can relate.

(I'm glad HOW ABOUT NOW has been rereleased in a wider form than when I originally bought it as a special Target release. This is the review I'd written when it first came out then:)

I've been a Kenny Loggins fan for most of my life (I'm a little too young to remember much about Loggins & Messina) and what I've always appreciated about his songwriting was his willingness to reflect so much of his personal life in his music.

In his last CD, "It's About Time", he sang about the everyday clutter that erodes passion in the song "I Miss Us" and the distance that grows between parents and their children dealing with divorce in "The One That Got Away." (It wasn't all bleak: the title cut is another fantastic collaboration with Michael McDonald--It's About Time they started making music again!).

I got to meet Kenny backstage while he was touring for the last CD and he seemed distracted and down. Then I heard he was getting divorced.

He's always been an artist who can turn his most personal pain into great music. On a recent tour last year, he sang "How About Now" and said that this new CD would be released in '07. Listening to it, you can hear a powerful voice of experience behind the songs, an authentic struggle to deal with problems and situations that a lot of us are in right now. Instead of trying to take the pulse of what's popular, Kenny has always tapped into a truthful vein by confronting his own experiences.

I remember a quote from the 1993 film of SHADOWLANDS: "We read to know that we're not alone." I thought of that while listening to Kenny's latest CD: I definitely know that I'm not alone while listening to these songs.

What a great CD. Love all the songs. Kenny stills sounds like he did in the 70's. He sounds the same in concert live also. I don't know what the one reviewer was on when he said Kenny sounded like an old man! Jealous, maybe? Doubt he has had the career that Kenny has! Love How About Now especially. Fantastic. Don't miss this one. it is great!!!!!

I've been a Kenny Loggins fan since the early 1980s, when I saw him in concert, and he almost blew the roof off the building. Since then, he's gone through a lot of changes, both musically, and in his personal life - with the latter feeding the former. I haven't always enjoyed the changes - I remember Kenny when he made music for the simple joy of making it; but the forays into self-indulgent navel-gazing, and save-the-earth preaching have kind've left me cold. Even his previous album to this, "It's About Time" which was supposed to be a return to form, sounded calculated and uninspired to my ears.

But now comes "How About Now". It sounds like Kenny Loggins music-making in his prime, with joyous, melodic, acoustic rockers, intertwined with sweet, melancholy ballads. I have LOTS of new favorites on this CD; from the gospel rave-up "That's When I Find You"; the rockabilly "Too Much (Never Enough)" and "How About Now" and mid-tempo numbers like "I'll Remember Your Name" and "If You've Never Been There". And while he still ruminates about his failed relationships on tracks like "I'm A Free Man Now" "A Year's Worth of Distance" and "One Last Goodbye Song" it never becomes bitter, or cynical, but more often taps into that wonderful melancholy that Kenny brought to such songs as "House on Pooh Corner" and "Danny's Song". I even enjoyed the stripped-down remake of "A Love Song" (well, it was pretty stripped down to begin with, but it's informed by the passage of years here).

In short, this is Kenny at his best - writing joyous, hook-filled music that rocks and shines. It's been a long time, Kenny - welcome back.

The cd case had a hole in it & I haven't opened it in case the cd is damaged, also. I want to return it for an undamaged copy. Please advise how to do this.

Despite what some people say this is not a bad album. Kenny did record this in Nashville so some of the songs have a country sound. The opening song "A Year's Worth of Distance" was written for his ex-wife Julia. He tells her "the only thing that's comin' through is a year's worth of distance from you". Some of the other songs are about their split up. There is an excellent contemporary take on "A Love Song" which he did back with Loggins and Messina and gave to Anne Murray to record as a top 10 single. "I'll Remember Your Name" is a tribute to our fathers and features his own son Crosby plus co-writer Richard Marx. Other collaborators include Mike Reid, Rachel Proctor, Beth Nielsen Chapman and Gary Burr whom he recently teamed up with for his
new Blue Sky Riders Band who will release an album in the upcoming months, but I am still awaiting the long delayed release of All Join In which is already on Amazon but might have gotten leaked out or something.

Been a fan of Kenny Loggins and his vocal talents as well. He's got a country edge on one song, but that's alright - he's still got it!

Kenny Loggins returns to his Loggins/Messina roots and early solo releases with this CD. Finally, Loggins has moved away from the generic adult contemporary sound that his past few albums featured to the great songwriting and understated production of his early efforts. For those reviewers who characterize this as a 'country' album, I would respectively disagree, as the country touches are slight and reminiscent of his earlier recordings. For the most part, the songs are memorable and I anticipate listening to this well into the future. Bravo Kenny for eschewing trying for a 'hit' single and producing an album that plays to your strengths and artistic leanings.

Unfortunately, I didn't love this release. While the lyrics were Kenny, the twang was out of place for this singer/songwriter with 30+ years of hits. When I recall songs done in the L&M days like Danny's Song, Pooh Corner and Your Mama Don't Dance, more recent tunes like Footloose, This is It, I'm Alright, Heart to Heart, and a release like Leap of Faith, this CD disappointed me. Loggins' voice sounds scraggly as if he's losing it, but let's hope it was the country edge and not his vocal cords! Hope KL releases something of the calibre we're used to! If Basia can offer a wonderful release after nearly 15 years (CD comes out in two weeks here, sooner in Japan), so can't Kenny Loggins!