Rod Stewart - Foolish Behavior
#479
By Robbie Rist
Rod Stewart
Foolish Behavior
Genre: Rod Music Only For Rod People
Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5
The Robbie Rating: 3 out of 5
Highlights:
Passion
She Won’t Dance With Me
Rod Stewart was the last of the jet set rock stars.
He seemed to take great delight in showing off his lavish lifestyle, his seemingly unending parade of gorgeous blonde girlfriends and to let us all in on how fun his life must have been.
And boy did his life look fun.
It even seemed to come out in his voice.
He was born with an instrument that took what made Sam Cooke so awesome, filtered it through Noddy Holder’s bench clearing yowl AND seemed to be winking and smiling at you the whole time.
Even when he was slumming.
Which he seems to be here.
But, c’mon, the dude had earned it by this point.
His solo career had been a steady uphill climb from Gasoline Alley on through Blondes Have More Fun with so many amazing songs.
And he completely knocked it out of the park with Do Ya Think I’m Sexy which made disco safe for uncoordinated white guys a good year or so before Kiss tried it.
And it made him a LOT of money.
Which might be the major problem here.
He had nothing to prove anymore.
1980 seemed to be a ‘place holder year’ for some artists.
The Cars found themselves in a similar place.
Foolish Behaviour isn’t terrible.
And I think that is the worst thing about it.
It shows an artist running low on soul coal.
The only hit was Passion which is....good....
Not great.
Kinda makes me miss Do Ya Think I’m Sexy (which I hated upon its release. I kinda love it now)
Passion just doesn’t have that same sense of ‘yeah, go ahead, make fun of me. I’m gonna go plow through a few more hot blonde girlfriends while you do that’.
The Faces style boogie songs sound like exercises. Not bar fights.
Ever heard his version of Bobby Womacks It’s All Over Now?
THAT sounds like a goddam bar fight.
This all sounds kind of....careful....
The white reggae lope of So Soon We Change sounds like they were going to make a better song but at the last minute felt it was fine.
He had had this core band for a few records at this point (including the terrific rhythm section of Phil Chen and Carmine Appice) and, up until now, you could hear flashes of the individual players personalities rising to the top on songs like Hot Legs and Ain’t Love A Bitch but not so much on this one. It feels like they are making Carmine play with only one foot and one hand.
Again, none of this awful, it just feels like they needed a breather and made this album instead.
It makes for decent background music and Stewart’s voice, as always, beckons.
But you never arrive anywhere on the journey.
His last good record, Tonight I’m Yours, was to follow.
I would say listen to that one.
There is a song on there called Tora Tora Tora (Out With The Boys).
THAT sounds like a goddam bar fight.
https://open.spotify.com/album/27JkLpdO8Mh29l6k3hpQNF?si=f0ss0dEYSLyynQHXF8zahQ
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