Hold Out

Jackson Browne

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 25, 1990)
• Original Release Date: 1980
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Elektra / Wea
• ASIN: B000002GX2
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #43,763 in Music (See Bestsellers in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Guess You Wouldn't Know Unless I Told You...But I Love You", April 11, 2001

By	Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

These words, spoken from choked breath to climax "Hold On Hold Out," seemed strangely satisfying, if plain, from Jackson Browne. His album-long searches for self within personal and social tragedy epitomised the Californicated musical center of the "Me Decade." In 1980's "Hold Out," whose dedication read "This is for Lynne" (Sweeney, Browne's love interest at the time), it was a moment of shared, truthful joy in a career filled with some of rock's most confrontational, confessional elegies.

"Hold Out" is unjustly criticized among Browne fans despite being his lone #1 album. Its seven soaring, expansive tracks celebrate resilience and reassurance, rocking as hard as anything Browne did up to then.

"Oh can we say that I've grown/in some way that we may have yet to be shown?" asks Browne in "Call It A Loan." You hear new, empathetic sensibility prefacing his explicit 80s protest music. This tranisition led critic Dave Marsh to refer to Browne having "Bob Dylan's career inside out."

Browne commits small details to memory here, making peace even at "Hold Out"'s most wistful. He concedes that "she couldn't have been any kinder/if she'd come back and tried to explain" in the savory "That Girl Could Sing." He consoles the then-recently deceased Lowell George's daughter in "Of Missing Persons," wishing, over George's Little Feat bandmate Bill Payne's organ, "May you always see what your life is worth."

In the misunderstood opener "Disco Apocolypse," featuring Payne's roller-rink-style organ, Browne sees survivor's strength in those escaping into disco's strobes. "When the world starts turnin'...and the dreams are burnin'," he sings, "...through the wind and fire they will be dancing still." Unlike The Who's snide "Sister Disco," it features some of the most powerful lyrics written about the disco era without being disco musically. These disco denizens, dresses and shoes new with hearts weary through and through, are the same armored cynics walking "right by like they were safe or something" in "Boulevard."

Crisper than his 1970s studio releases (engineer Niko Bolas later worked with Neil Young, Melissa Etheridge and Billy Joel), "Hold Out" draws its wide-open sound from 1977's live million-selling predecessor, "Running On Empty." It features longtime Browne collaborator David Lindley's evocative solos on "That Girl" and "Hold On, Hold Out" and wailing background vocals throughout from Doug Haywood and Rosemary Butler.

The new decade granted Jackson Browne hit singles, Hollywood romances, social activism and stinging personal rebuke from former friend and collaborator Joni Mitchell. But his greatest 1980s success came in that decade's first year with "Hold Out," a recommended set opening and closing an era for Browne and his singer-songwriter genre.

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "Hold Out" for one of Browne's better albums, July 12, 2002

By	Brian D. Rubendall (Oakton, VA) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Jackson Browne's "Hold Out" is not a terrible album. Unfortunately, it gets compared to his 1970s masterpieces like "For Everyman," "Late for the Sky" and "Running on Empty," next to which it does, indeed, pale by comparison. That said, there are some good songs here, particularly "That Girl Could Sing" and "Boulevard." The eight minute cut "Hold On Hold Out" that ends the record is also strong. The rest, including the dated "Disco Apocalypse," are decent filler material, though at 7 songs and a just over a half hour running time, the whole project feels slight compared to Browne's best work.

Overall, I would recommend "Hold Out" for ardent Browne fans and direct causal listeners to his earlier 1970s triumphs instead.

31 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Eclectic Emotional Experience!, July 23, 2002

By	Barron Laycock "Labradorman" (Temple, New Hampshire United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

If it is as true, as is often said, that great artists find their inspiration in life's trials and tribulations, then that sure helps explain the consistent artistic focus on love and relationships for singer and songwriter Jackson Browne for a twenty year plus period stretching from the late 1960s well into the 1990s. This effort to describe his frustration with the contemporary dating scene in the early 1980s painfully reflects his angst and inchoate feelings in attempting to reach out to touch his lover both emotionally and intellectually. Describing himself as a "holdout", meaning someone who refuses to "settle" for someone not meeting what they believe are the essential qualities for a love interest, he then details the consequent comedy of pain and suffering that ensues as he waits for the perfect person, who of course, he realizes may not actually exist.

As usual, Browne's fervently fertile mind dwells on the interior landscape of his own wounded psyche, and he uses his own palpable heartache to deliver a song cycle overflowing with blue-eyed California soul. The result is an album dripping with feeling, and yet one also characterized with an exciting level of exuberant electrical music. His lyrics are telling, as when he admits his own foolishness in allowing his preconceptions to rule his heart. Yet in the face of all this intellectual preciousness is some honest angst and pain, and one can hardly listen to songs like "Call It A Loan' to understand the powerful consequences of emotional miscues and misunderstandings two people trying to connect can fall prey to. So, too, in "Hold On, Hold Out", you find yourself rooting for a guy who finds he has to resort to actually telling his love interest how he feels about her.

And the sad truth is that by the end of the song cycle we understand why he is so cautious and constrained; perhaps, we come to understand, under the constricted emotional circumstances one finds in contemporary cultural interaction, this is the best that can be hoped for. This is a terrific concept album, one that painfully, faithfully and artfully essays the emotional realities of a attempting to have a meaningful romantic relationship, and one that gives us a rare view into the interior of life in the emotional fast lane. All of the songs here are good, but some are absolutely wonderful. I especially like "That Girl Could Sing", "On The Boulevard", and "Call It A Loan". As always, Browne's use of lyrics is so masterful that one reels at the power of description and expression he brings to bear on the subject of love gone awry. So let me close here by giving a high recommendation for this album for any and all Jackson Browne fans. Enjoy.