Customer Reviews

No Fun Aloud

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The music world seems to appreciate Don Henley's solo work as compared to Glenn Frey's and in many respects its quite understandable as Henley's social commentary in many of his songs are quite thought provoking. However, this collection of Glenn's is very overlooked as many fo the love songs are quite soothing. In addition, Glenn explores several interesting styles from the boogie woogie Sea Cruise to the disco flavored Don't Give Up to the gentle I Volunteer. You can't forget the frat house party hearty number.....Partytown. Maybe this disc is not quite up to desert island standards, but it sure is pretty darn good.

When Glenn split from the Eagles in 1980 and decided to make solo records he made No Fun Aloud with the aid of long time Eagles collaborator Jack Tempchin and a smattering of others, Hawk Wolinski etc. You may have expected Eagles formula LA rock but Glenn wentback to his blue eyed soul roots in Detroit and released an album full of R&B in a happy throw away style. First listen and subsequent listens allowed the words unsubstantial and light weight to spring to mind but time has treated the music well and some songs have grown on me as time went on. That Girl written with Bob Seger is one, as is I Volunteer which sounds a bit like Eagles, On the Border period. Don`t Give Up utilises 80`s electronics effectively and sounds vaguely Eagles Long Runnish. Sea Cruise is a joy in a happy go lucky Jamaica/R&B style while the Hit off the album the One You Love is a lovely ballad which brings a touch of moistness to the eye (occassionaly) While Don was venting his political spleen Glenn was having a good time. Treat this album as just that a good time record.

This album is one of Frey's best solo albums. This is not faint praise by any measure. After all, Frey has the most featured voice on the best selling album in human history. Unlike some of his albums in the mid-1980s, No Fun Alound has a consistent sound. Many of the works on these album have a blues-inspired feel that should be comfortable to fans of Glenn from the early 1970s. For what it's worth, this album is generally superior to fellow Eagle Henley's first solo album. Glenn works with many artiest that he colloaborated with during the Eagles-era including Jim Ed Norman, Jack Tempchin, and Bob Seger. Commonly mentioned stand outs on this album include "The One You Love" and "Partytown." I particularly like the last two tracks (She Can't Let Go and Don't Give Up). This album was not as commercially succuessful as some of its contemporaries since it did not pander to the faddish modernism of some other artists. There are a few songs that had modern touches but only upon a base that is solidly Frey's signature of R&B.

This is probably Glenn Frey's best solo studio album. I would recommend this album to fans of the early Eagles. Many of these songs seem like the ones that Frey was thinking of when he left the band. This is Glenn in his early 1980's glory with a number of blues inspired works and collaborations with Bob Seger, Jim Ed Norman and some covers of other artists' songs. This album does not suffer from the somewhat bizarre combinations of songs that seemed to plague a number of Glenn's albums in the mid and late 1980's. There are some well crafted Tempchin/Frey love songs like "She Can't Let Go" but there are also harded edged songs like "All Those Lies." For what it's worth, this album is generally superior to Henley's "I can't stand still" (which is also a good album). In many ways you have to praise Frey's choice of style with this album. This is an album with a number of guitar rock songs in the early 1980's when the synthesizer and techno were really king.

Having dropped into Muscle Shoals several times to give a hand to his buddy, Bob Seger, it was inevitable that he would begin his solo career here. Backed by an all-star lineup of Roger Hawkins-drums, David Hood-bass, Clayton Ivey-piano, Duncan Cameron and Wayne Perkins-guitars, and Harvey Thompson and Ronnie Eads of the Muscle Shoals Horns along with all the L.A. musicians, there was never a doubt about the quality of this album. It didn't receive as much recognition as it deserved because it hit at the same time as the advent of MTV. While most Americans were hooked on A Flock Of Seagulls, Haircut 100, etc., this album slipped by largely unnoticed. All one has to do is listen to a ballad like That Girl and wonder what was wrong with people back in 1982. And kudos to Eddie Hinton, God rest his tortured soul, for teaching Frey the "Bobby Womack Chinese soul" licks way back in 1971. It really came in handy on I Found Somebody and That Girl.

Wondering for years who was the artist for "The One You Love" then finally doing an online search and finding out it was Glenn, I bought this CD a few months ago.

I must say that except for "The One You Love", (which I originally thought was from the 1970's before I learned it was from 1982) I didn't really like this CD at first. I also was getting used to the Eagles' sound, being a relatively new fan of theirs. But then after a few months it grew on me and now I consider this to be an excellent CD indeed. Maybe the gloomy atmosphere of "The One You Love" clouded the uplifting nature of the other songs at first.

I like how Glenn parallels the sound of the Eagles and gives the songs a new twist. "I Found Somebody" sounds like "The Long Run" and "All Those Lies" sounds like "Witchy Woman". "She Can't let Go" sounds like "Lyin' Eyes" and "Partytown" reminds me of "Greeks Don't Want No Freaks". Yet the songs have this direct, stark quality to them, kind of like 'pull up a chair, have a beer and watch MTV with the guys' feel to it.

And the production is letter perfect and slick. Slicker than the Eagles even. For some reason it even reminds of Huey Lewis and The News a bit. And Glenn has an excellent voice and an excellent gift for melody.

Eagle Glenn Frey's first solo album came out in May, 1982, and it has dated a little bit, like almost all mainstream rock records from the 80s.
But much of "No Fun Aloud" holds up very well, and Frey's and Jack Tempchin's songwriting partnership produced a handful of really good pop-rock songs with a distinct soul flavour.

The album produced no fewer than five singles, with the soaring soul ballad "The One You Love" peaking at #15 on the Billboard 200 (and #2 on the Adult Contemporary listings).
"Partytown" got to #5 on the Mainsteam Rock list, and it's a pretty good little rocker...it always sounded better live, though.
The opener "I Found Somebody" is another highlight, a great mid-tempo soul-rock tune with Al Garth on sax. And Frey goes further into soul territory with the gentle "I Volunteer" and the swaggering "I've Been Born Again", and lays down a pretty good rendition of Huey 'Piano' Smith's "Sea Cruise".

The latter half of the album is not quite as consistent as the first. The synthetic "Don't Give Up" has dated really badly, and "All Those Lies" is just not particularly memorable.
The ballad "That Girl", co-written with fellow Detroit native Bob Seger, is perhaps a bit too sweet for some, but the Spanish-sounding "She Can't Let Go" is a real gem. Frey plays some lovely acoustic guitar and bass parts, and his voice is the perfect instrument for this type of song.

Glenn Frey's liner notes are clever and very much worthwhile, by the way, and his impeccable vocals and knack for crafting laid-back love songs take this album a long way.
3 1/2 stars. An enjoyable forty minutes.

I definitely recall loving No Fun Aloud back in high school (late 80s - it was already a bit dated then), but even then it sounded a bit slick and commercial to me. Then again, slick and commercial are not always bad things.

It's a bit surprising to me that an ex-Eagle would kick off his first solo album with a happy love song followed immediately by a sad one, but it works. "I Found Somebody" and especially "The One You Love" reflect Frey's Detroit blue-eyed soul roots, and they've both aged well. While less famous, "I Volunteer" and "She Can't Let Go" are, in my opinion, better still. For a guy who became famous in a band known for its chauvinistic swagger, it turns out Frey had a knack for sensitive troubled-relationship songs.

"Partytown" hasn't aged so well. I loved that one when I was younger for the sheer joy of hearing a song with a vulgar word somehow get on the radio, but now it just sounds like a guy trying much too hard to sound loose. "I've Been Born Again" is a much more convincing upbeat number, though ironically it's about cutting down on partying. "Sea Cruise" is also a lot of fun, if not much different from the numerous other versions of that song you've probably heard. "All Those Lies" is about as menacing as Frey ever got in his solo career, even if most of the menace is aimed at himself.

It's not quite what we might have expected for his first solo outing, but it's not bad either.

The first album of Glenn Frey after the break up of the Eagles. Excellent Piece and I've been looking for this on CD for a long time now. Thanks Amazon.com.

Not a bad album, it's pretty consistent throughout as a pleasant pop album. Putting this and Henley's first solo albums together, you get a great idea of how the Eagles strained themselves to death. The two of them clearly had different ideas about what the music should do, and that dynamic made great songs but a terrible working relationship. Apart, they never matched that stride but found their own voices. Now...WHEN WILL GLENN'S WORK BE AVAILABLE IN mp3 downloads!