newvillefan
I Know My First Name Is Stephen
The whispering sounds silly to my ears. It's not necessary. I'd must rather have the lamenting tone we get from Richard's choice than the whisper. I remember hearing that fade on Karen's and going, "NO!" LOL!!! It's just wrong. Richard's ending, for my ears and for the story of the lyric, is so much more effective. She wants him, darn it, and the ending of Richard's sounds like declaration.
Perfect summary of how I also feel about If I Had You, my favourite from the solo album. Richard's remix is far better and actually "modernises" the track, gives it a more contemporary feel. Another favourite is Lovelines, I love Karen's deeper register in the verses and the arrangement is great too. Again though, Richard's remix is superior and brings Karen's lead to the front instead of being too far down in the mix. I'm surprised Karen signed off the original mix as she's almost inaudible at a couple of points, buried amongst the backing vocals. My Body Keeps Changing My Mind is my third favourite, just fun for what it is: a straightforward disco track.
The only one I have to skip every time is All Because Of You. It just goes nowhere, the bridge is weak ("I keep singing my love song/In my mind I sing a song for you") and the ending is terrible, almost as if they didn't know how to finish it so Karen just goes up an octave on the last note and the whole thing stops dead. When Phil Ramone described the playback in LA, he said they were three or four tracks in, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife and he was ready to start biting his nails. If they were playing the album in its correct sequence, this is the second track Herb, Jerry and Richard will have heard during playback (after a disco number, which Richard explicitly advised her not to do). So to me, all this would explain their reaction.
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