Customer Reviews

Sleepless Night

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

 

 

Seriously. How *anyone* could listen to this album and come to the conclusion that other tin-eared reviewer did (that every song is a West Coast classic *except* the title track...?!) is a mind-boggling mystery to yours truly. (He doesn't even appear to know that Gorrie was lead singer of the Average White Band... that alone discredits the reviewer.)

Here's the truth: SLEEPLESS NIGHTS is a colossal disappointment from the former AWB singer: lazy songwriting, flat-to-non-existant hooks, funklessly digitized synths and aerobicized tempos, good for scoring low-budget straight-to-VHS 80's movies. Every song an embarassing misfire ("Diary Of A Fool" is OK, if you like cliched ballads).

There is but one exception: the title song. Oh, that title song. After its first few opening bars, you know it stands miles above the dross on the rest of the album: A smooth, sexy ballad with a great hook, sly chord changes, and ingenious arrangements, "Sleepless Nights" deserved to be a Top 10 Pop *and* R&B hit for Gorrie (Smokey Robinson thought so - he recorded it the next year). The song can be found on a Japanese compilation CD called "Light Mellow - AOR Universal Edition", surrounded by much better songs than you have to wade through here.

So despite the prescence of Jay Gruska, Nathan East, Michael Landau, and other L.A. royalty, if you're a West Coast AOR fan, the title song is the ONLY one worth having in your collection... but it is essential.

"Diary of a Fool" is one of the best ballads from the '80s although it wasn't a hit. "Sleepless Nights" is a soulful ballad and sounds like a hit. I suppose the up-tempo tunes do have an '80s sound to them but don't know that it's a bad thing. "Electric Between Us" sounds a bit like Michael Sembello's "Maniac" for instance. Love Alan Gorrie's voice - he's still lead singer of Average White Band - so I could listen to pretty much anything he sings. I thought this was a solid solo effort although I would have liked more songs on it and would have liked it more consistently soulful like AWB songs. Another really good solo effort by a former AWB singer is the "more recent sounding" Sooner or Later by Hamish Stuart. Check that out as well.

bought this years ago and traded it in. I guess I am getting old as I recently bought this and only liked one song everything else was dated and 80ish...

I had this record when it was released in the 80's but lost it. Probably someone who liked it as much and stole it from me... It's excellent musicians and he has a great voice. There is just one song that's not up to the rest of the songs and that is the title song. It's not often you find records were more or less all songs are great.
I'm very fond of artists like David Foster, Jay Graydon, Eagles, Don Hneley, Chicago, Toto, Bill Champlin and so on. If you like this type of music you will enjoy Alan Gorrie a lot. It's a bit 80's with the sound but it's actually one of the best records from that time. I just wonder what happended to him and if he released any more records?
I can really recomend this record. It's even better then what I remembered!

I very much would like to write a review; but there are no sound
tracks available to listen to.......can you help me out here, please?
What's the dealy, here?