Mushroom Records
1976
Don't Stop Believin'
About This Album
The 1976 edition of Olivia Newton-John continues the positive vibe that Have You Never Been Mellow initiated, and though the title track hit number one on the adult contemporary charts, it, surprisingly, failed to go higher than Top 30 pop. A shame because exactly five years later a different song with the exact same title and sentiment went Top Ten for Journey; the comparison is appropriate because Don't Stop Believin' is one of the slickest of Newton-John's country pop releases. Despite the extra gloss producer John Farrar put on this, it still retains some of the warmth of earlier Newton-John projects while making that inevitable pitch to the '70s record buying public. "New Born Babe" contains elegant musicianship, while Bruce Welch's "Hey Mr. Dreammaker" is bouncy country -- the antithesis of Gary Wright's "Dream Weaver," which was released, not so coincidentally, the same year. That Gary Wright, Olivia Newton-John, and Journey influenced each other's works, even if just thematically, says something about that period in music, but the real oddity here is Chris Christian showing up co-writing "Compassionate Man" with producer Farrar.
Track List (try tracks 1,6 and 7)

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