Retro Spins: Leo Sayer - Have You Ever Been In Love

Dragging my heels, and absolutely with no desire, I come to my last Leo Sayer album to check off my list. I'm at this point specifically to accomplish that task, and not because I have any type of expectation or desire to actually hear it.

The biggest disappointment in all of this is that Leo really does have a good and often unique voice which can and has carved out some amazing tunes. However, the misses are just far to more frequent, and crush the overall legacy he otherwise could have had.

Things start off as expected. Slow paced tempos with dated, even for the year they were released, sounds. Sayer often feels trapped in the 70's. Specifically, in a contemporary soft rock, and sometimes disco driven era.

Frankly, at this point, I wasn't in the mood to be strung along in mediocrity. I gave each song a set period of time to impress, and if it didn't, I moved on. I had no interest in sitting around for an hour with its bloated runtime being subjected to songs that simply weren't resonating.

Sea Of Heartbreak, another slow-paced track was somehow still appealing to my ears, and one of the few tracks I made it from start to finish. In hindsight, I feel I may have been mistaken.

Let's just cut to the chase. I didn't enjoy this album, and I skipped past most of it. Even the songs I did hear were forgettable, and most of those were because I was listening to them while working and didn't get the chance to skip them all.

I'm glad I'm done with my Leo Sayer journey. I'll take the hits that I like but can easily skip the rest. I'm taking a momentary step back to really dig through the remaining albums I have to listen to. Like Pat Benatar, which I recently finished, I want to find something really good. Perfect would be great, but I'll take anything that turns out to be a hidden gem at this point. I guess we'll all find out tomorrow where I landed.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
November 28, 1981

 

THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
November 28, 1987

Retro Spins: Leo Sayer - World Radio

Leo Sayer isn't often an artist brought up in conversation, which is a shame. He has an amazing voice, and though he doesn't hit the mark all the time, okay, most of the time, he does have a solid catalog of hits.

I actually own all of Sayer's albums from his 1973 debut, Silverbird, all the way through 1990's Cool Touch. He's an artist I learned about from my sister while compiling a series of songs she personally wanted. However, with exception of the latter, and 1980's Living In Fantasy, I really haven't dived in too deep beyond the series of tunes I know and love.

Well, starting today, it's time to cross off (at least) those two remaining albums from the 80's. It all starts with 1982's World Radio and ends tomorrow with 1983's Have You Ever Been In Love.

Things for Sayer weren't going to good in the 80's. He never really broke through in the USA, and his album sales in the UK were on a steady decline. His 70's style, and dated sound, was quickly losing traction in the up-and-coming new wave era.

Fun fact! In 1981, Sayer voiced Dan the forest ranger for the Canadian cartoon, The Racoons.

Leo loves his ballads, and slower paced tracks. These give him an opportunity to really flex his vocal range of high tenor and falsetto. However, when the mood strikes him, he can also dig deep in his gut to layer tracks with raspiness. This range is present on songs such as Heart (Stop Beating In Time), and Paris Dies In The Morning.

However, overall, this album is very hindered by soft rock tracks which simply don't resonate with me. Truthfully, it's what happened last time when listening to Living In Fantasy, and why it's been so long since I've circled back to Sayer. This type of music simply isn't my thing, and this was another dud.

It's unfortunate, because this type of stuff really derails me from wanting to continue on with listening to an artist, and that's kind of where I am again. I want to like Leo Sayer, and I want to like him a lot, but the misses far outweigh the hits. I'll begrudgingly be divining into his next album basically because I just want to get it off my "to do" list. This already sets a low expectation.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
November 27, 1982

Retro Spins: Leo Sayer - Cool Touch

Much like Jermaine Jackson, Leo Sayer's career seems to have the same problem. It's showing up to the party too late. By this, I mean his music seems to be a decade behind. While most artists of the 80's were adopting synthpop sounds, Sayer (and Jackson), seemed to be stuck in the 70's dance craze of disco and ballads. It's because of this that it's no surprise Sayer's 1990 released Cool Touch seems to have finally caught up to this style of music. It certainly makes it stand out as my kind of music. However, I can also see why it failed to really impact in the era of grunge. It probably didn't help that the album was only released in the United Kingdom, Australia and Germany.

Despite its release date, the sound of the album appeals very much to my 80's nostalgic sense of being. As far as I'm concerned, it fits right in there with anything released between 1986 and 1987. However, with that said, it doesn't get a free pass for that.

As I listened to it, I didn't hate what I was hearing. Unfortunately, I also wasn't being blown away. Of the ten tracks, only two stood out for me. What made this all the more worse was how superior they were to the rest of the album. Going Home and My Favourite easily could have been chart toppers in the 80's, but very overshadowed and ignored in the 90's.

The album intrigued me enough to want to see what else Sayer did past his prime years in the industry. However, this led to a disappointing dead end. While he did release a few more albums, the releases were limited to foreign countries, and not only that, but he appears to have reverted back to his 70's era music style. I suppose I'll be passing on those.

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Retro Spins: Leo Sayer - Living In A Fantasy

Leo Sayer is an artist who never seemed to get the credit or attention he deserved in the music industry. Even as I type this, I'm sure many of you are asking, "Leo, who?" His career seemed to hang out in the middle of the road, never garnering mainstream attention, but also finding a strong enough foothold to not fall into obscurity.

Sayer hit the scene in 1973 with his debut album, Silverbird, and with the exception of 1981, continued to release new records consecutively through 1983's, Have You Ever Been In Love. His career was not devoid of chart toppers, having two hits reach number one in 1977 alone. In fact, even from today's album, Living In A Fantasy, the song More Than I Can Say, hit the charts in September of 1980, and eventually climbed to the number two spot by December. It stayed there for four consecutive weeks, kept from the number one spot by Kenny Rogers, Lady, which held that number for six consecutive weeks before being dethroned by John Lennon's, (Just Like) Starting Over.

With all this praise I'm throwing out to the artist, I'd be lying if I said Leo Sayer was one of my all time favorites. He has some good songs, really good ones, but for me, they're sporadically spread across the above noted era of albums. Even with that said, the majority of my knowledge, and opinion, of this falls within his albums from the 70's. Because of this, I thought today would be a good day to fire up his first contribution to the 80's and have a listen.

Here's the thing. As I listen to it, it's Leo Sayer. It has his distinctive sound, range of vocal points and a decent lineup of songs. It's his voice which drew me more so to his music than anything. Leo has a range to the notes he can hit. He can hit solid high notes, keep it smooth, or even belt out a raspy scream. It's when he mixes these various styles together that his music really stands out.

However, what it lacks on Living In A Fantasy, and what pales it to prior albums, is that it has no punch behind any of the songs. Nothing really stands out as a solid track. Even his chart topper noted above really didn't leave any form of impression with me. I've definitely heard better from him.

Out of all of them, You Win / You Lose, was the only one I ended up grabbing for my shuffle mix. The rest were easily passable. I think what ultimately cripple his career in the 80's was his inability, or perhaps desire, to move past the sounds of the 70's and step into the world of the 80's. His music never really evolved to stay current. Perhaps this is why nobody would see another studio album from him until 1990's Cool Touch.

Ironically enough, it appears that in this change of the decade that Sayer finally adopted a synth style pop sound. However, to do so in the dawn of the era of grunge was definitely a boat he jumped on way too late, only adding to his irrelevance in the industry.

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