🎵 AotW Joan Armatrading - WALK UNDER LADDERS (SP-4876)

[LPJim]

Joan Armatrading
WALK UNDER LADDERS
A&M SP-4876

(Original US cover, left; UK cover, right)

SIDE ONE

I'm Lucky 3:05
When I Get it Right 3:03
Romancers 3:48
I Wanna Hold You 3:46
The Weakness in Me 3:33

SIDE TWO

No Love 3:58
At the Hop 3:26
I Can't Lie to Myself 3:23
Eating the Bear 2:59
Only One 4:15

Joan Armatrading - vocals, piano, guitar, wrote songs
Thomas Dolby - synthesizer
Andy Partridge, Hugh Burns, Kirby Gregory & Gary Sanford (also vocals) - guitar
Mel Collins - sax

Ray Cooper & Julian Diggle - percussion
Sly Dunbar & Jerry Marotta (also backing vocals) - drums
Nick Plytas - keyboards
Tony Levin & Robbie Shakespeare - bass
Dick Cuthell & Rico Rodrigues - horn

Produced by Steve Lillywhite
Steve Brown - engineer
George Chambers - assistant engineer
Michael Ross - art direction & design (with Simon Ryan)

Entered the Billboard Top 200 on Oct. 17, 1981
Charted for 32 weeks and peaked at # 88
Reissued as SP/CD 3317

JB

 

[jfiedler17]

Armatrading - a terribly underappreciated talent - had already made quite a few solid albums at this point (especially her self-titled '76 album with "Love and Affection"), but I think this is the album where she really blossomed into an equally solid singles artist as well and showed she could really make a grab for more mainstream exposure - and try her hand at some more danceable material as well - without sacrificing any of her artistry. "I'm Lucky," "When I Get It Right," and "The Weakness in Me" are all must-haves on any truly worthwhile Armatrading compilation or mix tape, and the playing is top-notch throughout. (But then, that's to be expected from a lineup of session pros like Levin, Marotta, Cooper, etc., not to mention guest stints from Thomas Dolby, Sly & Robbie, and, coolest of all, XTC's Andy Partridge, who makes a very rare guest appearance here away from his usual - and oh-so-underrated - band.) Definitely one of my top two or three favorite albums of hers, and part of a great run of new-wave-tinged albums she did for A&M in the early-and-mid-'80s that should have finally helped her score at least a Top 40 hit or two, anyway.

- Jeff F.

 

[EWilder]

Yeah, I remember buying this when it came out and being pretty blown away by it. I haven't listened to it much in recent years ... I'm a little afraid I might be put off by Lillywhite's '80s production. A lot of artists I loved who recorded during that period (including Peter Gabriel, Laurie Anderson, Kate Bush) have the dubious honor of being saddled with clangy drum sounds and other studio effects that have dated their work in uncomfortable ways.

 

[jfiedler17]

I went back and listened to this one again last night and had to go back and listen to "When I Get It Right" several times. That song is just an absolute stroke of genius - it's a wildly unconventional and unpredictable song and has a lot of weird meter and chord changes, and yet it somehow all inexplicably manages to come together in a very commercial way and has an absolute knockout of a chorus. Armatrading's always had a great gift for balancing art and commerciality and writing accessible, single-caliber material that tends to be more lyrically and musically sophisticated than your usual pop single, but I'm not sure she ever did a more impressive job of welding the off-beat and more experimental to the commercial than she does in that particular song. Just brilliant stuff.