Sony
2005
At This Time
About This Album
For as great as he is, Burt Bacharach has never been much of a solo recording artist. His greatness lies as a composer, not as a performer, due largely to his gravelly voice, which has a tendency to waver out of tune, but he also has a tendency to indulge in his sleepiest MOR qualities when he's left to his own devices. Even on his 1967 solo debut, Reach Out, he emphasized easy listening, spending nearly as much time on instrumentals as he did on vocal tracks. This is a template Bacharach followed over the years, returning to it repeatedly on his increasingly infrequent solo albums. As the decades passed, he paid less and less attention to his recording career, entering a quasi-retirement after 1977's Futures. He returned 20 years later with a collaboration with Elvis Costello, Painted from Memory. This was released at the height of a Bacharach revival -- new bands were covering his songs, dropping references to his work in interviews, and Mike Myers' Austin Powers character seemed to be lifted out of a mythical swinging '60s scored entirely to Bacharach/David songs -- but despite great reviews and the fact that it was Bacharach's best album, it stiffed. Despite its poor commercial fortunes, it eased him back into being an active artist, so when he released At This Time seven years later, it didn't seem like a comeback as much as it did a belated follow-up of Painted from Memory.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,4,5 and 7)

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