Disco de Glen Campbell: “Love Songs [Gold Label]”

This is a great album for people who love romantic songs from the early sixties and thereabouts. All In The Game, Only Love Can Break a Heart, You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling, Etc. Glen still has a great set of pipes and makes the listener feel young again. JDK

Glen Campbell has recorded some very fine interpretations of love songs over the past 35 years. This album, even though it's a recent recording, is way below his usual standards. Dreadful arrangements that were probably meant to recapture a 1960's feel and a terribly flat and uninvolved vocal performance on most of the tracks.

On top of that, the CD clocks in at barely half an hour of playing time, most of the selections are in the two-minute range. The only halfway decent rendition here is probably Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" with some nice guitar work. The other eleven tracks drown in female sing-along-choruses and soupy strings that sound as if recorded during a Vegas showroom practise and patched over Glen's uninspried vocals as an afterthought.

If you look for moving Glen Campbell ballads check out his work with Jimmy Webb, especially the "Reunited" album that gives you 75 minutes of some of his best recordings of the 1970's and 1980's - and they even sound a lot better!

These same 12 songs are on CD #2 of GC's MY HITS AND LOVE SONGS, which has a total of 18 tracks on the new recordings cover tunes, meaning you're missing six tracks if you buy this version of those recordings. CD #1 on that set is a repackage comp from Campbell's Capitol albums, a mixture of his hit songs and '68-'75 album filler. If you're looking for these tracks, this project, pick up MY HITS AND LOVE SONGS 2-CD set.