Customer Reviews

Raspberries

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

 

 

If you're already a Raspberries fan, you know about these four albums, this being the first. The reason to get these new imports is for the beautiful digipak and the vastly improved sound over any of the domestic releases. I have this and 'Fresh' and i'm counting the days til 'Side 3' and 'Starting Over' are available.

It's perfect timing for the classic Raspberries albums to be reissued individually on CD at last--given their recent reunion and successful concerts in Cleveland and Chicago. Prior to this, these albums were available only as a set of two each on two CDs. Now anyone who's a fan of power pop but somehow missed this band or has not yet purchased their complete albums on CD has the option of doing so one at a time. This one is a must--although it doesn't rock as hard as later ones would, you can't afford to miss classics like their BIG hit "Go All the Way" and the eight-minute time-morphing masterpiece "I Can Remember." Buy it, listen to it, love it--then watch for news of a concert tour. I've been to all three shows so far, and after 30 years, this band is rocking more than ever.

One of the most overlooked power pop bands of the 1970s, the Raspberries (Eric Carmen, Wally Bryson, Dave Smalley & Jim Bonfanti) have reunited and are currently playing to sold-out shows in venues across the US. This is their debut LP and contains their top-10 hit, "Go All the Way".
A charming introductory album - not their best effort, but it will give you an idea of just how talented these musicians are. Highly recommended.

This album holds a special place in my heart. Even though I am one of the Beatles' biggest fans, it was this album that prompted me to go out and buy my first guitar and teach myself to play it. "Go All The Way" and Argent's "Hold Your Head Up" were the first 2 songs I learned to play. The massive hit, "Go All The Way", Eric Carmen's answer to McCartney's "Yesterday" in the form of "Waiting". Then the album closer and one of my favorite songs of all times "I Can Remember". I simply cannot see anyone not finding something redeeming within this album. Sheer brilliance, and they were only getting started, folks!!

My original vinyl LP came with a "scratch and sniff" sticker that smelled like a Raspberry thicket. I went through 2 vinyl LP's, a couple of cassette copies, the first edition released on CD, and I'll surely buy this import. It's that good!!

This is an incredible, unacknowledged album. Every song is outstanding and the layout of the songs was very well done. If you like the sounds of the late 60s with its folksy yet simple melodies, this is for you. Preview a song you'll know what I mean. I am so glad I purchased it.

The Raspberries' audacious idea---for 1972, it was as audacious as they came, amidst the glitter, glam, and prog pretensions dominating rock at the time---was that rock and roll could never be better than if you laid the harmonies of the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Hollies on top of the spine-crunching power chords of the Who and Free and the earthquake backbeats of the Small Faces and the Rascals. In their hands, rock and roll was exactly as the Raspberries---and particularly Eric Carmen, their primary songwriter and singer---imagined it, and if you could listen to "Go All The Way" or "Come Around and See Me" and not agree with them, you probably couldn't believe that something like "Go All The Way" cracked the 1972 Top 20 in the first place. (Never mind that you probably got caught completely off guard that a song this overtly about pubescent sex got on the charts at all, never mind top 20.) Either that or you wondered if they'd spent too much time watching the Beatles on the Sullivan show whenever the segment reared its head or numbing themselves with "Bus Stop" and "I Can See For Miles" back to back.

The other members of the group---guitarist Wally Bryson, guitarist/bassist Dave Smalley (rhythm guitarist on this album, switched to bass in favour of Carmen moving to rhythm guitar afterward), thundercrack drummer Jim Bonfanti---didn't quite have Carmen's songwriting chops. But they weren't exactly stiffs, either. Get past the obvious and Dave Smalley's "Rock and Roll Mama" is pretty zippy, and pretty basic. No bells and whistles, just stripped and whipped rock and roll.

The Raspberries had a softer side, too, and it was the side that hurt them more than helped them, if you didn't count Carmen's exquisitely understated "I Saw The Light." (How exquisite? Try it being the Raspberries' best ballad until "Starting Over.") But by the evidence of "Don't Want To Say Goodbye" and "I Can Remember" (if Barry Manilow had wanted to be a rock and roller, this is what he'd have dreamed up) they couldn't deliver a ballad with even half the smarts or the sensibility (like knowing when to shut the hell up already) of their rockers. If you listen just once to "I Can Remember" and think they should have canned the first half and just left the rocking second half intact, you'd have been right.

But they learned their lesson. (How could they not, given "Don't Want To Say Goodbye" was actually their first Capitol single and died faster than a chainsaw massacre victim?) And from this debut they'd go on to create some of the most vibrant---and unfairly ignored---music in what did become known as power pop. Many have become appreciated after their time; few deserved that kind of cruelty less than the Raspberries.