Retro Spins: John Parr - Running The Endless Mile

When I first listened to John Parr's self titled 1984 album, I was immediately hooked, and tracked down his follow up, Running The Endless Mile. However, in between listening to that album and this one, I faced a problem I've been running into as of late. What I've found is that songs I said were good, and got added to my shuffles, I skip over every time when they come around. I listen to a few seconds, and then say, "Meh," and move on. This happened with a lot of tracks from John Parr's first album. The only two I listen to these days are Naughty Naughty and St. Elmo's Fire, the latter of which I can hear from the actual soundtrack.

This has caused me to take a step back. Mind you, I'm still going to denote songs which stood out for me in my listening sessions. However, I'm going to try and be a little more picky, so to speak, on what I'm saying is "good".

With that out of the way, let me jump in.

Right off the bat, I recognized the song Two Hearts, which is apparently from the film, American Anthem. I honestly don't know why this song feels familiar. I've never seen the actual film, and I can't recall ever hearing it on the radio.

A quick search of the top forty charts from 1986 and 1987 only showed one track from the album actually touching the charts. That was Blame It On Radio. That song appeared at number eighty eight in December. However, by the following week it had dropped off completely. I guess what I'm trying to say is I don't know how or when I heard the song, Two Hearts.

Overall, I like John Parr's voice, but I'm not necessarily feeling the songs themselves. They're just okay. It was interesting how the tracks which were noted as being from films seemed to be "better" than those specifically written for the album. Definitely not as interested in hearing more John Parr at this point as I was after hearing his first one.

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