Spotlight: KEEP YOUR EYE ON ME (SP-5125)

What Is Your Favorite Song On This Album?

  • Keep Your Eye On Me

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Hot Shot

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Diamonds

    Votes: 5 20.8%
  • Traffic Jam

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Cat Man Do

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Pillow

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Our Song

    Votes: 1 4.2%
  • Making Love In The Rain

    Votes: 3 12.5%
  • Rocket To The Moon

    Votes: 2 8.3%
  • Stranger On The Shore

    Votes: 4 16.7%

  • Total voters
    24
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I realize I'm recycling yet another old topic, but once again, I see no reason to start a new topic about something that already has a topic for it.

I found a copy of this album on cassette a couple days ago in a thrift store. Paid all of fifty cents for it. While I feel bad about not having paid what it's worth, I can solace myself with the knowledge that the copy I now possess was paid for by somebody in the past and that his/her stupid mistake of donating it is my gain.

I've only listened to it twice. For some reason, it doesn't seem to like the tape player in my office as well as the one in my car and was making noise like it was struggling (maybe the problem is the player though, since when I checked the tape it looked fine, but I've not had any problems playing my Beyond tape in the office player). Of course, it's accumulation means two less tracks that will be new to me when I get a chance to buy a copy of Definitive Hits, but I can certainly handle that "sacrifice".

Anyway, having read what the rest of you said about the album again, I agree wholeheartedly. This album is different. I would go so far as to label the two tracks that made Definitive Hits (Diamonds and Making Love In The Rain) as the two clunkers on this album. I say that not because they're necessarily bad, but because when I put an Alpert album on to play, I expect to hear some Alpertian trumpet work, not some female vocalists of whom I am not a fan. Diamonds should definitely have been on a Janet Jackson album if it was by her, and Making Love in the Rain likewise should have been reserved for an album by the gal that sang on it, whose name I forget.

Other than those two, the style is different, even compared to Rise and Beyond (the only two other solo albums I've found copies of so far), but I don't think it's quite as different as you guys make it out to be, and I think the whole thing is quite good other than the aforementioned two tracks.

Anyway, I'm voting for the title track in the poll. The beginning is a little, well, off the wall, but otherwise it's a very catchy song in my opinion.
 
Somehow I missed responding to this thread (and voting) way back when.

This album served as a "wake-up" call for me. I'd drifted away from things-Alpert through the late seventies and early eighties, picking up albums every now and then, listening to them perhaps once and filing them away. And I'd missed a few along the way.

When KEEP YOUR EYE ON ME was released, I heard a sample of "Diamonds" here at the radio station, along with the title track, "Keep Your Eye On Me". Both somehow caught my ear and made me want more.

I remember bugging the program director to get me a copy of the LP, which he did. I played it through enough to know that I wanted it on the newfangled format of CD, so I went out and bought it. While out buying that, I bought up every other Alpert back title that I'd missed on the CD format.

That was how I managed to snag things like MAGIC MAN and RISE - I already had FANDANGO on CD - but I never found a BEYOND.

From that point on, I never got behind in my Alpert purchases, always grabbing them as they appeared.

So I "thank" this album for being as good as it was, and waking me up to continuing my collecting.

There really isn't a bad track on this album, as far as I'm concerned. I can surprisingly enjoy every track here, and often listen to this album straight through. But for voting purposes, I went with "Pillow" - I'm always a sucker for a good Herb/Lani duet.

Harry
 
I find it hard to believe that The Brass Are Comin gets such sour reviews, and everybody seems to enjoy this album.
 
There are some albums in history that people either love or hate without much middle ground. Maybe this is one of them. I've never heard The Brass Are Comin' so I wouldn't know why people are so hard on it.
 
Heard "Diamonds" recently for the first time in twenty years...it really strikes me that he's not up front playing more, having more of an upfront presence in the track along with Janet. They could have done that and still taken full advantage of Janet's vocal and her huge appeal at the time.....
 
The thing about "Diamonds" is that there are many different mixes of the song (from the 12" era). And it turns out that MOST of the other mixes (the non-album mixes) have more of Herb's trumpet than the official album mix.

I prefer the "Cool Summer Mix" myself.

Harry
 
I never did hear any of those 12" mixes -- During the '70s, I got tired of 12" mixes in general after listening to quite a few; they were OK for dancing or mixing, but too repetitious for listening, at least in my taste. I suppose things got better in the '80s by the time "Diamonds" came along.

(I did like the 12" version of Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" which included a cool sax solo that wasn't on the album version!)

Here's a cool idea for Shout Factory: The Herb Alpert dance album!
 
Mike Blakesley said:
I never did hear any of those 12" mixes -- During the '70s, I got tired of 12" mixes in general after listening to quite a few; they were OK for dancing or mixing, but too repetitious for listening, at least in my taste. I suppose things got better in the '80s by the time "Diamonds" came along.

Did you ever find the set of three 12" singles that were released for this album? I lucked upon one many years ago and, in fact, the store had five or six sets in stock. I should have bought all of them. They were pressed on red, blue and clear vinyl.

Mike Blakesley said:
(I did like the 12" version of Donna Summer's "Hot Stuff" which included a cool sax solo that wasn't on the album version!)

If it's the right 12" single, it also segued right into "Bad Girls". :D Our local radio station always played that 12" single all the way through, so it's no surprise both songs went up the Billboard chart at almost the same time. I still haven't seen both of these songs, together, in their original 12" single format on a CD yet.

Mike Blakesley said:
Here's a cool idea for Shout Factory: The Herb Alpert dance album!

He has enough remixes to fill one CD, if not spread it out over two!
 
Big BIG Jam/Lewis fan here, so this album was like the icing on the cake for all the Minneapolis buzz happening around the time. Did I say The Time? One of my favorite funk bands! I know Prince played almost exclusively on the first three Time albums (with Morris Day on lead vocals, of course), but seeing the band live with Jam, Lewis, Jellybean Johnson, Monte Moir and Jesse Johnson was one of the best concerts I've been to. On the Time album "Pandemonium", the "real" band finally gets to play on some of the tracks.

The Jam/Lewis touch on Janet Jackson's "Control" was just what she needed. Her first two A&M albums weren't all that good. On her first, she did a couple of tracks that sounded like ripoffs of her famous brother's sound. The second album didn't even produce a minor R&B hit. "Control" found her grown up and having her own sound. Jam and Lewis also had success with other bands (the S.O.S. Band, etc.), so it was really a treat to hear one of my favorite production teams with one of my favorite trumpet players.

As much as I like their other three tracks, I really like the sound on "Pillow". "Keep Your Eye On Me" is the runner-up for favorite track on the album.
 
I can't remember if we've covered this before, but "Diamonds" at first was going to be recorded by the Human League, whose album Jam & Lewis had just produced. They were on BET's "Video Soul" and mentioned this at the time. Timing is everything. :D


Capt. Bacardi
 
SP 5125 is the next AOTW. Since there's previous discussion, and there's no 'SP 5126' identified I will post SP 5127 next.

JB
 
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