Stil seems kind of a guilty pleasure though. So what do we think of the man?
― Ally C, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
I've nothing against Browne -- seems to be a nice enough guy. But his music is a little too bland, too Southern California-Seventies for my taste. So I'll just shut up now.
― Tadeusz Suchodolski, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
Yes, the music is bland, but that somehow appealed to me today, it was easy, and sweet, and sad. Does this mean I'm getting old ?
― Phong Wiedermeier, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
"Lawyers in Love": thoroughly underrated anti-Reagan screed with absurd falsetto parts. I think only Dave Marsh takes it seriously, but don't let that put you off.
― Michael Daddino, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― electric sound of jim, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
I'm not that familiar with Jackson Browne beyond the hits, but I think some of the hits are pretty good.
― DeRayMi, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 20 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― dave q, Thursday, 21 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Chris Barrus, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Sean, Friday, 22 March 2002 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
but "The Load Out/Stay" off the Running on Empty album is simply one of the best things I have ever heard, as well as the ultimate "drive home after a long night of drinking" song in my lifetime.
"A thousand miles away from here, people stay just a little bit longer..."
― Ryan, Friday, 7 June 2002 00:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Matt Riedl (veal), Tuesday, 25 June 2002 00:00 (twenty years ago) link
His taking personal offense at Punk and continuing to disparage it is very dud, however.
He dated Nico at age 17 (or thereabouts), you know.
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― amateurist (amateurist), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― Justyn Dillingham (Justyn Dillingham), Monday, 28 July 2003 18:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― My name is Kenny (My name is Kenny), Monday, 28 July 2003 19:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 28 July 2003 20:26 (eighteen years ago) link
― Kris (aqueduct), Monday, 28 July 2003 21:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― dave q, Tuesday, 29 July 2003 07:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Baaderist (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 15:25 (eighteen years ago) link
― Rockist Scientist, Wednesday, 7 January 2004 15:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Huckleberry Mann (Horace Mann), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 15:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― amateur!st (amateurist), Wednesday, 7 January 2004 16:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― fancybill, Thursday, 25 November 2004 21:12 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ally C (Ally C), Friday, 26 November 2004 00:47 (seventeen years ago) link
― giboyeux (skowly), Friday, 26 November 2004 01:23 (seventeen years ago) link
ok wait i think the lines were "you've heard that hollow sound/of your own steps in flight." what a precious-precious line.
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:22 (seventeen years ago) link
my mom has a lot of jackson browne records.. guessing by this thread, i should steal "running on empty." which others are worthwhile?
― Ian John50n (orion), Friday, 26 November 2004 06:26 (seventeen years ago) link
i am not drunk, unless one can get drunk on turkey and peach cobbler.
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 06:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 26 November 2004 07:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 07:22 (seventeen years ago) link
Ah, the gang: I knew it well. I'd had an encounter with one of its thugs, see, and in the process got tossed by said mag for telling what was it?, oh yes, the truth. This was '72. After several false starts, Jackson Browne finally had an album out, which seemed a good occasion to bring to light some interesting hokum from his past--I'd known the mutha since '67. So I did the first feature on him for Rolling Stone or anywhere else--a rave, for crying out loud, and he freaking hated it, thought it made him look "too punk." And what might be so wrong with that? Before twelve people knew who the fuck he was, he was like some weird-isn't-the-word cross between the Young Marble Giants, say--or from a later universe: Cat Power--and Byron or Shelley. On his first visit to New York, he backed up (and horizontal-danced with) the fabulous NICO, had a connection to Lou Reed and the Warhol crowd, blah blah blooey. So I talked all this stuff up--what the hey--it was what I thought would make him MOST APPEALING. And he's so upset he gets Asylum Records prez David Geffen to call the Stone and have me booted, good riddance, don't come back.
Four years later, I was eating at South Town Soul Food in L.A. when Jackson walked in with gang-sister number one Linda Ronstadt. Not wanting her exposed to my cooties, he motions for her to stay put, struts over, sits down, and in less than a minute explains to me how it is. "We singer-songwriters"--he always relished being part of something (but imagine calling yourself such hogwipe)--"feel we get a better shake from this Cameron kid...he never challenges us...accepts our side of the story...we don't have to worry what he'll say...no offense, but..." I.e., writers exist to write-about-musicians, bub...so go wash dishes or something.
poor thing.
― g--ff (gcannon), Friday, 26 November 2004 07:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Baaderonixxx le Jeune (Fabfunk), Friday, 26 November 2004 09:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― Mooro (Mooro), Friday, 26 November 2004 17:34 (seventeen years ago) link
― Fritz Wollner (Fritz), Friday, 26 November 2004 17:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― amateur!!st, Friday, 26 November 2004 20:04 (seventeen years ago) link
― fancybill, Friday, 26 November 2004 23:12 (seventeen years ago) link
Lots of comments here on the Jackson songs recorded by Nico on Chelsea Girls, plus Meltzer's comments on Jackson's early songs. There was a double LP acetate album produced in '67 as a songwriting demo album. Jackson has never released the stuff, but it has been bootlegged as the Nina Demos. I think Meltzer's comments are a little over the top--there's a saccharine element to some of these songs--but I swear there are like fifteen or more songs on the thing that are as good as those three songs on Chelsea Girls.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 31 January 2005 19:15 (seventeen years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Monday, 31 January 2005 19:20 (seventeen years ago) link
Steve Noonan's Elektra album is worth hearing. Meltzer has some things about it in Aesthetics of Rock.
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Monday, 31 January 2005 19:25 (seventeen years ago) link
― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 05:23 (seventeen years ago) link
― Baaderonixxxorzh (Fabfunk), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 07:55 (seventeen years ago) link
― Alfred Soto (Alfred Soto), Wednesday, 4 May 2005 12:36 (seventeen years ago) link
Cover model Michael J. Pollard!
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Sunday, 7 February 2021 00:47 (one year ago) link
Second two-page spread of that piece eerily foreshadows Yacht Rock
― baelien (Ye Mad Puffin), Sunday, 7 February 2021 00:56 (one year ago) link
birdistheword, I do find that attribute (that I might call plain-spokenness) in some of Browne's work, like The Only Child on The Pretender.
I've wanted to read the Paul Nelson compilation/biography, but haven't encountered it yet.
― Halfway there but for you, Sunday, 7 February 2021 01:23 (one year ago) link
XP ...and the final paragraphs provide a harbinger of Browne's asshole friends.
― "what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??" (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 7 February 2021 01:26 (one year ago) link
Ah, okay, here's Noonan, and some stuff about the "Three"'s origins, in Unterberger's liner notes for reissue of s/t debut: he and their high school buddy Greg Copeland wrote "Buy For Me The Rain," Top 40 Nitty Gritty Dirt Band hit. also, Noonan, very extensively quoted here, says that he and Browne wrote things first recorded by Tom Rush etc., attributed to JB only, and he mentions "The Fairest of the Seasons," which I know is on the Nico LP and I think is the one w typo, "Browne-Copland,"confusing me until I heard of Greg Copeland: with all them strings and the melodee, it had me wondering if based on something by Aaron C. Noonan mentions seeing boy Browne as accompanist for Nico and El Cohen (singing together, I hope): http://www.richieunterberger.com/noonan.html
― dow, Sunday, 7 February 2021 01:29 (one year ago) link
Here is Xgau writeup on Paul Nelson- and Ellen Willis! https://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/bn/2011-11.php
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 16:08 (one year ago) link
Jackson Browne gets a back-handed swipe.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 16:10 (one year ago) link
He was always kinda-sorta on Browne, going by his Consumer Guide takes over the decades. Would still kinda like to hear this, speaking again of Greg Copeland:Revenge Will Come [Geffen, 1982]Producer Jackson Browne has gone after absolutely predictable midtempo studio rock, but with a tough edge that's augmented by Copeland, who sounds like (of all things) Jackson Browne with a tough edge. Propitious--if Copeland can move his mentor's personalist millenarianism far enough left to write protest lyrics that surrender neither psychological dimension nor American mythos, I bet other young rock mainstreamers are thinking the same way. B- He also liked some of Browne's 80s protest lyrics, so Copeland did turn out to be a good influence maybe.
― dow, Monday, 8 February 2021 18:27 (one year ago) link
Maybe they wrote together again? When Browne eventually did get back into a lot of co-writing.
― dow, Monday, 8 February 2021 18:29 (one year ago) link
“Together Again”? Buck Owens?
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 18:40 (one year ago) link
I had to double check because I was pretty sure Christgau wasn't much of a fan of any Jackson Browne album (except maybe Running on Empty), but it looks like he does have some nice things to say about the '80s political albums. I have a lot of admiration for Browne's activism, but I don't think he's recorded a whole lot of good protest music. Off the top of my head, the best ones I've heard him do were covers, the multi-artist "Sun City" single and the "Lawyers in Love" single which feels a bit like an outlier for being a satire. Maybe it's not something that clicks with him musically, who knows.
― birdistheword, Monday, 8 February 2021 19:57 (one year ago) link
Also, while looking him up in CG, I forgot about his great guitarist David Lindley. He actually put out an acclaimed album in 1981 called El Rayo-X (Christgau gave it a B+, Marcus put it on his top ten of the year.) Looks like a Ry Cooder-type project, with some interesting, humorous covers. Will have to check it out, but regardless Lindley is probably the most essential component of Browne's best recordings.
(I see Horace Mann mentioned this upthread way back in 2004: I'll give him props for producing David Lindley's awesome El Rayo-X and providing good back-ups thereon.)
― birdistheword, Monday, 8 February 2021 20:01 (one year ago) link
O yeah mad love for David Lindley, the eclectic multi-instrumentalist sideman with the ridiculous hair and sideburns who plays with Jackson Browne.
Also for Mark Stewart, the eclectic multi-instrumentalist sideman with ridiculous hair and sideburns who plays with Paul Simon.
For a while I thought there was only one eclectic multi-instrumentalist sideman with ridiculous hair and sideburns who plays live with various well-known folk-rock singer-songwriters. Turns out there were, and are, at least two.
― baelien (Ye Mad Puffin), Monday, 8 February 2021 20:10 (one year ago) link
LOL, I do not know the name, but I caught Simon's last show and know exactly who you're talking about.
― birdistheword, Monday, 8 February 2021 20:41 (one year ago) link
(last tour stop that is)
― birdistheword, Monday, 8 February 2021 20:42 (one year ago) link
This was kind of the hit or "hit" off that David Lindley album iirc:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URm7Ze9a56o
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 21:51 (one year ago) link
Here is an almost ten minute long live version:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAbbgSKUZB4
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 21:52 (one year ago) link
Lindley was also in the great (American vs. the British or Mexican) psyche band Kaleidoscope pre-Browne and solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbRcURfROJY
― bulb after bulb, Monday, 8 February 2021 22:06 (one year ago) link
Oh yeah, almost forgot about that.
― The Ballad of Mel Cooley (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 8 February 2021 22:08 (one year ago) link
Yeahhh Kaleidoscope (US) vs Kaleidoscope (UK) vs Kaleidoscope (MX)
― dow, Monday, 8 February 2021 22:33 (one year ago) link
...and he's Linda Ronstadt's cousin!
― "what are you DOING to fleetwood mac??" (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 8 February 2021 22:39 (one year ago) link
Lindley is great, he put out some “official bootlegs” of live acoustic shows in the 90s that were funhttps://www.discogs.com/master/view/549049https://www.discogs.com/master/view/549044
― brimstead, Monday, 8 February 2021 23:02 (one year ago) link
& Kaleidoscope were longtime uncredited backing band on Leonard Cohen's debut lp. Think that only came out over last few years.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 February 2021 07:21 (one year ago) link
Oh yeah there's some pretty great footage of Lindley backing Terry Reid on the Glastonbury Fayre film. Can't link to it while typing on my phone.
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 February 2021 07:24 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ElzhsMCVlkQis the footage I'm familiar with from the Nicholas Roeg film
― Stevolende, Tuesday, 9 February 2021 10:09 (one year ago) link
Chunks (maybe adding up to most/all) of Browne's Newport Folk 2012 set are on YouTube, and his Tiny Desk Concert is on npr.org.
― dow, Tuesday, 9 February 2021 19:59 (one year ago) link
What got me into him, killer cover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HzeX_kh9lU
― dow, Sunday, 17 October 2021 20:45 (eight months ago) link
Also!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx5NkGZr1iQ
― dow, Sunday, 17 October 2021 20:46 (eight months ago) link
not bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JfWYHAIp-g
― dow, Sunday, 17 October 2021 20:48 (eight months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qlPrrVnPbs
― dow, Sunday, 17 October 2021 20:49 (eight months ago) link
Bonnie Raitt's covers are usually great. (FWIW, her "My Opening Farewell" on the 1995 Road Tested is better sung than the studio version she did almost 20 years earlier.) But generally she's a much better interpreter than Linda Ronstadt. I love Heart Like a Wheel but a lot of times her covers seem completely misguided - even when arranged tastefully, she oversings them like a popped balloon that's been inflated too much.
― birdistheword, Monday, 18 October 2021 02:22 (eight months ago) link
Nico's "These Days" the earliest release and still my fave rave version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhr2MlQd7i0
― dow, Sunday, 24 October 2021 19:31 (eight months ago) link
Elton John getting his inner-Jerry Lee Lewis on in the background of "Red Neck Friend" is hitting all the spots this evening.
― Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Friday, 5 November 2021 23:23 (seven months ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPi_ksFoczI
― Exploding Plastic Bertrand (James Redd and the Blecchs), Thursday, 11 November 2021 15:54 (seven months ago) link
Oh yeah, used to hear that on Collegetown radio quite a bit, thanks.
Bonnie Raitt's covers are usually great. (FWIW, her "My Opening Farewell" on the 1995 Road Tested is better sung than the studio version she did almost 20 years earlier.)Thanx 4 tip, birdistheword!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6AgpzsnHo8
― dow, Thursday, 11 November 2021 18:14 (seven months ago) link
Man, I just don't get this guy. Yeah, there are a handful of songs I enjoy, and Late for the Sky is a good mood piece. But he doesn't have the teeth of Warren Zevon, or the grand ambition of Springsteen, or even the gross cynicism/careerism of the Eagles. More than anything else, he just always sounds so bored of himself.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:06 (two weeks ago) link
Like, this song was reportedly written for James Honeyman-Scott, but it's such a shameless Springsteen rip that gloms onto his most generic qualities (let alone as lazy tribute a guitarist as special as James Honeyman-Scott). In fact, at first I thought it was a parody, a la "Tweeter and the Monkey Man."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGxZplDXhQU
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:17 (two weeks ago) link
FWIW, when I think about what I like best about his work, it's rarely something I'd equate with any of those three. In fact, as you've pointed out with "For a Rocker," I'd say his work became much less distinctive when it seemed like he was under Springsteen's influence. (Also when I compare his version of "Take It Easy" with the Eagles', the subtle differences really emphasize what I don't like about the band and what I do like about Browne.)
Late for the Sky may be the only album I genuinely love (and without qualification), but there's probably 20, maybe even 30 tracks beyond that album that I do enjoy, mostly from the '70s.
The only two tracks I like from Lawyers in Love is the title track (at least I find it amusing) and "Tender Is the Night."
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:21 (two weeks ago) link
Actually, here's a homemade comp I have on the shelf (lots of overlap with his official The Very Best of but tweaked a bit for my own purposes) - I basically listen to this or Late for the Sky:
This Side Of Paradise • The Best Of Jackson Browne (1972-1989)
Disc One1 Jamaica Say You Will 03:242 Song For Adam 05:233 Doctor My Eyes 03:154 Under The Falling Sky 04:095 Rock Me On The Water 04:136 My Opening Farewell 04:447 Take It Easy 03:358 I Thought I Was A Child 03:459 These Days 04:4710 Redneck Friend 03:5911 Ready Or Not 03:3512 For Everyman 05:5813 Late For The Sky 05:4414 Fountain Of Sorrow 06:5415 The Late Show 05:1416 For A Dancer 04:4917 Before The Deluge 06:21
Disc Two1 Your Bright Baby Blues 06:062 Here Come Those Tears Again 03:403 The Pretender 05:534 Running On Empty 05:035 Rosie 03:416 You Love The Thunder 03:557 Cocaine 04:568 The Load Out 05:359 Stay 03:2210 That Girl Could Sing 04:3711 Boulevard 03:2212 Call It A Loan 04:5013 Somebody's Baby 04:2314 Lawyers In Love 04:2115 Tender Is The Night 04:5516 In The Shape Of A Heart 05:4017 I Am A Patriot 04:04
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:25 (two weeks ago) link
I'll have to check some of those songs out. Many of them I bet I've heard, but Jackson Browne just evaporates out of my brain.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:35 (two weeks ago) link
I should add, if you like Bonnie Raitt, her covers are usually better than Browne's originals. Raitt's "Under the Falling Sky" completely smokes Browne's.
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 June 2022 18:51 (two weeks ago) link
i don’t fw jackson browne much but late for the sky is so much more than a mood piece. the duet between browne’s vocal and lindley’s guitar is straight-up sublime.those notes aren’t hard to play but I’ve been chasing the vibe for years, and not to get all TGP but if I could cop just one recorded gtr tone, that would be it.
― poster of sparks (rogermexico.), Friday, 17 June 2022 20:52 (two weeks ago) link
Lindley is awesome in any context.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 17 June 2022 20:58 (two weeks ago) link
Lindley's El Rayo-X from 1981 is a good listen.
― birdistheword, Friday, 17 June 2022 21:14 (two weeks ago) link
Yeah mang & "Taxim"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBaYJr_ux4g
― dow, Friday, 17 June 2022 22:52 (two weeks ago) link
It's interesting that you all say Browne is influenced by Springsteen, because as someone who has only heard Late for the Sky, I had assumed the influence was the other way around. "Thunder Road" in particular seems like it started out as Springsteen trying to do Late for the Sky lyrically, between the setting that's basically the last verse of "The Late Show" and the line about trading in wings that comes from "Before the Deluge" and doesn't really make much sense in TR. And that's not even a throwaway line, because the original title of the song was "Wings for Wheels."
I'm not doubting that Browne ended up being influenced by Springsteen, it's just odd that he ended up imitating someone who started out fairly blatantly imitating him.
― Lily Dale, Sunday, 19 June 2022 01:48 (one week ago) link
Oho, interesting--dunno if there was that kind of back and forth with them, but it can happen. On The Million Dollar Quartet, Elvis keeps trying to tell his hopped-up friends about being struck by something in Vegas: how the fella with "Ward and The Dominos" (he means Billy Ward's lead singer, Jackie Wilson) did a takeoff on Elvis's version of "Don't Be Cruel," just slightly exaggerating or emphasizing certain thangs,like "telly-phone"--and I notice on some of Elvis's own live performances, a little later, he makes sure to sing "telly-phone" and so on (screws around likewise on a number of studio outtakes, like a long-ass vamp on "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright," which the cats are playing fine, but he never lets go of the wasted first verse).
Also, Bobby Darin's hit version of "Mack The Knife" seemed like an imitation of Frank Sinatra, who later recorded it in much the same manner, and Darin's Tim Hardiny original, "Simple Song of Freedom," was covered by Hardin.
David Crosby based "Guinevere" on a bit of Sketches From Spain, and Miles covered The Croz song.
I thought Love and Theft sounded like the best Tom Waits album ever, and said it in the Voice, so if you think of Waits as influenced by Dylan(who sounded like Waits for quite a while after that, though smoother on My Rough and Rowdy Ways)---
― dow, Sunday, 19 June 2022 02:27 (one week ago) link
I think Springsteen definitely was influenced by Browne, in some way, though I don't hear any musical similarities. They're peers, almost the same age, both released debut albums at 23 (and Jon Landau later produced "The Pretender"), and I think they met one another before Springsteen released his first album, but the two have pretty different backgrounds. Saw this:
https://estreetshuffle.com/index.php/2021/03/24/matr-jackson-browne-and-bruce-springsteen-running-on-empty/
And of course Bruce later inducted Browne in the rock and roll hall of fame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFyC6pnz-k
Bruce had a relationship with Zevon, too, of course. That's surely why he kept crossing paths with them both, showing up on stage/albums, etc, to pay his respects. But I don't hear any of that strain of LA singer/songwriter in Bruce at all, whereas for sure Brown and Zevon (and others) at times tried to recast themselves in Bruce's more (musically) muscular image. Iirc Springsteen is what made Zevon shift from piano to more guitar, and his live shows reportedly (in the oral history, I believe) tried to emulate the more energetic side of Springsteen as well.
Always loved this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACSeVC6umzg
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 19 June 2022 14:11 (one week ago) link
(Gotta admit that Bruce's speech makes me want to give Browne yet another shot.)
― Josh in Chicago, Sunday, 19 June 2022 14:18 (one week ago) link
I thought Springsteen's influence on Browne really manifested itself with The Pretender. (Probably helps that Jon Landau produced it.) I don't know Browne's history that well, but I got the impression he started off more as an aspiring songwriter whereas being a musician (specifically a guitarist) and a performer was always there from the very start with Springsteen. Years before Browne got the chance to record an album proper, he already had songs recorded by Nico and the Byrds, and of course the Eagles famously laid claim to one before it was even finished (and before they even made an official record of their own).
So with that in mind, it's no surprise that Browne's first three albums seemed to grow out of the Laurel Canyon sound. I wouldn't call them anonymous sounding records - Lindley alone made them distinctive - but they sounded pretty organic to that scene and Browne was very much a part of that. Then comes The Pretender and there's a tougher and lusher sound, more muscular and more polished, and more importantly his singing follows suit as well. Then he makes a bigger leap with Running on Empty where he's singing with more authority than he's ever had, and the band is tighter and more rocking too. With those two albums and the next one, I got the feeling he knew how Springsteen's records sounded and how great the E Street Band were, and he basically used them as a model to update his sound. When he became inspired by the way Springsteen made his sociopolitical conscience work in his music, that set him in another direction with his next three albums (starting with Lawyers in Love) - at least that's how it seems to me, I'm not sure if that's actual fact.
Truth be told, I think his songwriting was at its best on the first three albums. The Pretender was the best sounding record he made at that point, but it came with a weaker batch of songs. Running on Empty is his best work in terms of performance, but it's a much less interesting and original work than any of his first three albums, and I think it says a lot that it's heavy on co-writes with a few covers thrown in - it's as if he was shifting more focus to other things besides the songwriting. The politically-oriented albums are admirable, but what he makes of the subject matter is much less compelling than what he's done before. Except for "Lawyers in Love" (which may be helped by its humor), and two love songs picked as singles, the only other cut I enjoy from those albums is actually a cover, and it gets over more for performance than the lyrics.
― birdistheword, Sunday, 19 June 2022 18:19 (one week ago) link