Eric Carmen ...

[uwe]

.. the power pop magician has sadly pulled his final disappearing stunt.

[westen44]

Criticized by some for being too pop, he was still able to deliver the goods time after time.  Knowing that a song like this could get controversial, he managed to avoid the issue by offering the song from the girl's perspective. 

[uwe]

I'd say that Rick Springfield, among others, probably heard him a lot!

[westen44]

I'd say that Rick Springfield, among others, probably heard him a lot!

With one difference being that Rick Springfield was quite a chick magnet.  He didn't just have the pop singer image, but also the soap opera thing going on.  I think it was just too much for a lot of women to resist.  I can remember being around women several times talking about him.  They wanted to rip his clothes off as well as their own.  I'm sure Eric Carmen must have had a positive reaction, too.  I just don't know very much about him. 

[uwe]

The Raspberries were to me America's version of Badfinger. If you like the music of one of them, you'll have a hard time disliking the other.

Eric's solo ballads did come with extra cheese toppings, but were still immaculately crafted.

Re Go All The Way, I always thought the contrast between the choppy-riffy, busy intro and middle part on one hand and that ultra-melodic/-harmonic verse + chorus (with the slow-moving vocal melody) on the other hand as bordering on the hilarious, but catchy it was.



Lester Bangs - always good for a scathing comment, but the man dug Deep Purple! - sure didn't like it (go to the end of the vid!  ), but it seems to have been a blueprint for how a lot of Cheap Trick songs work.

[westen44]

It's my impression that a lot of people in the U.S. were familiar with songs by the Raspberries, but didn't even know the name of the band.  Badfinger, on the other hand, seemed to be taken more seriously.  Maybe because of their association with the Beatles. 

[Ken]

With one difference being that Rick Springfield was quite a chick magnet.  He didn't just have the pop singer image, but also the soap opera thing going on.  I think it was just too much for a lot of women to resist.  I can remember being around women several times talking about him.  They wanted to rip his clothes off as well as their own.  I'm sure Eric Carmen must have had a positive reaction, too.  I just don't know very much about him.

Rick also had the benefit of Neil Giraldo working with him.

[Ken]

https://www.vintageguitar.com/2967/neil-giraldo

[westen44]

Rick also had the benefit of Neil Giraldo working with him.

I'm sure it was a big help.  BTW, good article. 

[Dave W]

I vaguely remember Go All The Way but never heard the singer's name.

[westen44]

Like I was saying earlier, although familiar with their songs, I believe a lot of people didn't know the name of the band.  Certainly not the names of band members, either.  According to this interview I just found, Eric Carmen claimed the Raspberries appealed to an unusual demographic. 

https://web.archive.org/web/20120324114946/http://ecentral.my/news/story.asp?file=%2F2007%2F9%2F4%2Fmusic%2F20070904092526&sec=music

[uwe]

Well, if Dave Edmunds has said good things about Eric Carmen/The Raspberries, then Dave will now like them too! This thread has turned out to be a merger of worlds!!! (At 52:35, Eric Carmen, Dave Edmunds, Jack Bruce and Simon Kirke.)



I'm a bit surprised, while they never meant much in Europe, I thought they were more of a household name in the US. Stylistically I'd lump them together with indeed Big Star, Badfinger, Billy Squier's Piper or Cheap Trick (interestingly enough, none of these bands were big in Europe, we like either rock OR pop, not so much something in the middle). But I think Carmen is right in that interview, Power Pop wasn't really music for the first half of the 70ies. Had some of these bands stuck around, they would have likely done better in the post-punk era when newcomers like Blondie, The Romantics or The Cars let the genre re-emerge. Suddenly it was cool again to have shorter songs, a catchy chorus and a haircut plus show some on stage sartorial chic, even dress up in uniform suits.

[westen44]

I've never cared much for this song myself, but it was Eric Carmen's first hit after leaving the Raspberries. 

[uwe]

It's pure cheese,



you could imagine Air Supply or Barry Manilow doing it - BUT ALSO skillfully composed, that piano bridge leading to the chorus is like from a 19th Century compositional handbook.

I was wondering why none of the usual suspect divas has done a cover of it, but of course I was wrong.

[Highlander]

rip...