Customer Reviews

Secrets

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This is the one that turned me on to Robert Palmer. He has so many musical styles, he's without a doubt someone who's music I appreciate. The best songs here are "Bad Case Of Loving You", "Jealous", "Can We Still Be Friends", "What's It Take?", and "Remember to Remember". I also like the album before this, "Double Fun". If you are a connisseur of great music, you'll appreciate this one.

This album opens with its biggest hit BAD CASE OF LOVIN' YOU(DOCTOR,DOCTOR). That would also be Robert Palmer's first #1 hit of his career and an "addiction"* in 1989,a decade after the release of SECRETS. CAN WE STILL BE FRIENDS was on the hit parade for a while also. That was written by Todd Rundgren who recorded the song himself. I love the harmonica heard in IN WALKS LOVE AGAIN. WHAT'S IT TAKE? became an "addiction" also. All the other songs are very good. The cover illustrates Palmer in a pencil sketch,shaving. Inside the CD booklet and on the LP inner sleeve,is an actual black and white photo of Palmer shaving with shaving cream on his face and a razor in one hand. I dedicate this album to the memory of Palmer who died suddenly of a heart attack on September 26,2003. * This version is slightly different than the SECRETS version. It sounds like it was recorded in a garage also,the word "loving" appears in the title rather than the apostrophe on the SECRETS version.

1979's Secrets marked Robert Palmer's fifth slo album since 1974 and at the time was his biggest seller. Though still largely unknown in the UK, Palmer was developing a strong US fan following with consistent airplay on FM radio and noteable if not overwhelming sales of his previous albums. The previous year's Double Fun album found Palmer moving away from the R&B funk leanings of his first three albums and embracing a more adult contemporary sound with flourishes and island rythyms and disco. For Secrets, Palmer moves in a more radio friendly hard rock direction, with heavy percussion and less string laden arrangements, similair to the dance freindly hard rock music he topped the charts with in the mid to late 80's during his commercial heyday.

Cuts like "Under Suspicion" and "Jealous" drive home the almost arena rock type feel of this set best exemplified by "Bad Case Of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)", an oft recorded classic rock hit that is best known for being being performed by Palmer. The single just missed the US Top 10 during the summer of 1979 and helped push the album into the Top 20, Palmer's best showing to date in the US. There are few noteable moments when Palmer leaves the hard rock behind, embracing African music influenced arrangement on "What's It Take" and going back to the blue eyed soul balladeering featured on some of his earlier efforts with a remake of Todd Rundgren's "Can We Still Be Freinds". Some of the better songs on this set turned up on the excellent Robert Palmer compilation albums "Addictions Vol 1" and "Addictions Vol 2", as well as the 2 CD set "Best Of Both Worlds" collection. Of all Palmer's early albums, this is probably the one that best shows the musical direction his career was heading in as he moved into the MTV era of the 80's.
While not as artistically challenging as his earlier work, Secrets is an enjoyable radio freindly rock album with enough diversions to remind fans that Robert Palmer was a musician eho embraced many varied musical genre's, even if he excelled best at hard rock.

I find it incredible that Robert Palmer gets virtually no critical respect. Perhaps it's from his late period hits ("Addicted to Love", "Simply Irresistible" both which are terrific and catchy singles IMHO)and success. I recently read a review of Palmer's career at allmusic that casually dismisses him as a "lounge lizard" rocker with all style and no substance. Clearly the writer hadn't listened to Palmer's EARLIER work. "Secrets" along with Pressure Drop, "Clues" available as part of this 3 disc set Robert Palmer and Sneakin Sally Through the Alley are brilliant albums that meld Palmer's long time love of Rock, R&B, Reagge and other musical influences that he heard growing up on Malta. His band Vinegar Joe embraced many of these styles and Palmer never gave up on what he loved.

The big hit single here is Palmer's remake of Moon Martin's "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)" that became his second U.S. Top 20 hit (his first was "Every Kinda People" from the well made but slightly flawed album "Double Fun"). Just about every song on here is perfectly realized. Now out of print in anticipation of the remasters planned for 2007 that were supposed to have bonus tracks that were shelved and never released, "Secrets" is only available as 1) used items or 2) as a digital download here at amazon and at itunes.

For those interested in picking this album up inexpensively the digital downloads from itunes as far as I can tell is the same mastering as the original CD and, while it isn't quite as good a quality as the CD (or even the original vinyl which is the BEST way to hear this classic album), the downloads are a good alternative to hear this album and, ultimately, having access to a terrific album like this is more important than not having it at all.

The packaging isn't all that great--it has the basic original liner notes and I personally would have loved a retrospective booklet discussing the making of this album indepth.

It's not well known but Palmer although he appeared to be JUST a singer could play guitar, bass, keyboards and drums and on some of his albums played all the instruments for certain tracks or would trade off from song to song.

Why Palmer doesn't get the respect he deserves is beyond me; Palmer wasn't edgy like, say, Bowie but he never meant to be and he DID expand on his musical vocabulary without betraying his blue eyed soul roots working with a variety of talented producers (Bernard Edwards for Riptide)and musicians (Gary Numan for "Clues" Palmer's "New Wave" album). Anyone without the ability to look past the "lounge lizard" act that we saw in the videos for his later hits clearly doesn't know their music and shouldn't be reviewing at a place like allmusic.

If you have read any of my reviews, I have said that I always look at the whole package, not just the parts, and Rober Palmer's "Secrets" is another one of those. It has one of his biggest hits (Bad Case Of Lovin' You(Doctor, Doctor), and the Todd Rundgren song "Can We Still Be Friends" (of which Robert does an excellent job), but there is more to this effort, and the ear will notice. Check out "Too Good To Be True", "Jealous", and "Under Suspicion". You really find out about Robert, and how talented he really was. And this is before he hit it big. If you want all his hits, get "The Very Best of the Island Years". But if you like Robert, I recommend this effort.

Robert Palmer usually changes styles within an album (from soul to hard rock to lounge-crooner in 'Riptide,' for example.) But this is a solid AOR collection, highlighted by 'Bad Case of Lovin' You' (Doctor Doctor), his cover of Todd Rundgren's 'Can We Still Be Friends?' and a forcefully-delivered 'Under Suspicion.' There's no glossiness here, and the band and production are tight and solid.