Disco de Glen Campbell: “Light Years”

This album came after Campbell's Still Within the Sound of My Voice when Campbell returned to the charts again with the Webb penned title song.Light Years is primarily Jimmy Webb songs(7 excellent,varied Webb tunes).The title track Light Years is classic Webb,beautiful soaring melody with poignant lyrics.Campbell's voice is elegant,contemporary,emotive,and anything but country.Webb simply brings the best out of Campbell as an artist.Music such as this has no category(and thus little commercial marketability).I originally purchased this on cassette in the 80's and have replaced it with a CD.Campbell has not put out an album since with an abundance of Webb songs.I hope they get together soon--we need this kind of music --

I heard an interview with Glen Campbell quite some time ago in which he lamented the relative lack of popularity of this album, as he clearly thought that it was quality work. The Jimmy Webb songs on this disc also appear on the expanded Glen Campbell/Jimmy Webb Reunited CD. If some of the songs on this album would have been released in Campbell's prime (Light Years; Lightning in a Bottle), they might well have been huge hits. Light Years reminds me of great works released by other artists after their popularity was in decline (Judy Collins' Fires of Eden and Gordon Lightfoot's Shadows are examples) that never reached the large audiences that they deserved. Light Years is a genuine bargain, and will be enjoyed by any Glen Campbell fan.

Another great Glen Campbell album from later in his career, released in 1988. I followed his career closely from mid 60s thru late 70s. However, I lost track of him when radio stopped playing his songs, unfortunately! Recently discovered this.

Light Years contains 10 songs; all but 2 ("Show Me the Way to Go," and "Heart of the Matter,") were written by Jimmy Webb. Another great Webb/Campbell collaboration!

You will recognize Jimmy Webb's very poetic lyrics, and his beautiful melodies with surprising chord changes. (Think "The Moon's a Harsh Mistress.")

Just about all the songs are slow to medium tempo, the exception being "Saturday Night," which is an upbeat song celebrating the weekend. Otherwise, mostly love songs with all the yearning, regrets, happiness, sadness, lost love, and good love anyone could want.

Alot of very beautiful piano in many of the songs, played by T.J. Kuenster, Glen Campbell's keyboard player of ~35 years (as stated in introductions on his goodbye tour.)

And Glen's voice is as pure and smooth as ever. You can feel his emotion in his voice. Any Glen Campbell fan should love this album. If you're not already a fan, this album could make you one.

Originally I got hooked on Jimmy Webb's music from Richard Harris' MacArthur Park and his albums. From there it was a short trip to find other artists who appreciated and sang Webb's compositions. I must say that Witchita Lineman is my all time favorite song. But this particular album has received a lot of play for me because, again, we have a great combination of Jimmy Webb songs performed well by Glen Campbell. "Lightning in a Bottle", "Light Years" and "Our Movie" are just absolutely brilliant love songs. You hear them, they echo your deepest feelings, you wish you had written them, but are just thankful someone like Webb did and Campbell interpreted them. The arrangements, production and performances are very high quality. I have no idea why this album was not a commercial success, even with the country audience that I do not profess association with. If you like the combination of great melodies, intelligent lyrics, and real singing, then do not miss the opportunity of listening to this album. You will not be disappointed and you will wonder why you did not discover it long ago.

As vinyl junkie (a couple of overseas Lp exceptions), this album made a great bookend to my vinyl Lp collecting interest; per Jimmy Bowen's book, he wanted to show the up-to-date '89 side of his MCA/Universal (then Capitol/???) "independent" label, stopping Lp release in favor or CD/cassette only. As Campbell's most disappointing album, it also seems fitting this is his last regular release vinyl Lp.

Six GREAT songs, GREAT vocals, with good (blah) treatment. The GREAT SONGS are "Lightning In a Bottle," "If These Walls Could Speak," "Show Me the Way to Go," "Light Years," "Almost Alright Again," and "Our Movie." Five of the six ("Show Me the Way to Go" is a Jeff Tweel song that fits the general theme of the 6-song album) are GREAT Jimmy Webb, though given, UGH!, irritating synthesizer treatment.

Four OK-to-stinker songs: "More Than Enough," "Brand New Eyes," "Heart of the Matter," (a Michael Smotherman song again, see GC's BASIC Lp, c. 1978) and "Saturday Night." The worst two are "More than Enough" (awful!) and "Saturday Night," Campbell's degraded clone of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting"

--the latter is not the first time this has happened; go back to '76 and listen to the "Bloodline" song from that album, and tell me it isn't a second-third generation copy of Lightfoot's "Canadian Railroad Trilogy."

Irritating album: a synthesizer buzzing of fake strings, fake harmonicas, fake horns; they annoy and clutter up the instrumental backing. I've found that there's one no-nonsense rule about "country" albums that this LIGHT YEARS album displays: conservative suit on a C&W audience, generally a pop album, a little dull, in disguise. Yes, this album has that cover shot.

Six Great songs, blah instrumental overall style, it's an Ok album for the fans, a suggestion of what it might have been.