Customer Reviews

Six Pack of Love

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You are missing out if you missed this one. The album cover is a grabber and so are the songs. One of Case's greatest tunes, "Beyond the Blues" is here. This one rolks!

I've been following the career of Peter Case since I first fell in love with his early 80's power-pop band The Plimsouls. Peter's post-Plimsouls solo work has seen highs and lows but anyway you look at it, Six Pack Of Love isn't a very good record. My major complaint is the record's unfocused artistic vision and lack of true inspiration. Stylistically, this hodge-podge mix of songs is all over the map...Beatleish pop rock, blues, novelty songs, folk, etc. And even that would be ok if any of it felt truly inspired. But despite the frantic efforts of producer Mitchell Froom to dress it up, there's not much on Six Pack Of Love that inspires any emotion in the listener. This is just music for music's sake and it feels pretty empty.

Having left the powerpop world behind in 1983 by disbanding The Plimsouls, Case set off to explore folk and country, creating singer/songwriter music that was filled with flatpicked acoustic guitars and troubadour-styled songs. The course set by his initial pair of albums for Geffen ("Peter Case" and "The Man With the Blue Post Modern Fragmented Neo-Traditionalist Guitar") was mysteriously interrupted by this return to electric, often soul-powered, pop.

Co-producer Mitchell Froom overloaded the album with his quirky arrangements and studio touches, drowning the songs in style and subverting their substance. Case's then-current songwriting simply couldn't stand up to Froom's manipulations, and unlike the sheer electric joy of the Plimsouls' records, the result here is leaden and manipulated. Having pared his sound down and cleared his songwriting palate for the preceding pair of albums, Case wasn't yet in need of Froom's makeover. This third, and last, effort for Geffen finds Case overwhelmed by his surroundings.

The few bright spots include the delicate "Never Comin' Home" and down-beat "Beyond the Blues" (co-written by Case, Tom Russell and Bob Neuwirth), though you still have to cock your ear to avoid Froom's aural-graffiti. Co-writes with Case's heroes, such as John Prine and Billy Swan, are all but lost to Froom's misinterpretation. The resulting album is for Case completists only.

2-1/2 stars, if Amazon allowed fractional ratings.