J-Records
2003
As Time Goes By... The Great American Songbook Vol. II
About This Album
Thanks to Clive Davis, Rod Stewart found a career revival in 2002 with It Had to Be You: The Great American Songbook, the album that refashioned the lovable rogue into a swanky swinger. Davis' gamble paid off -- he figured that the public, already aware of Stewart's status as a great singer, would believe that he could sing classic pop songs as well as he sang rock, soul, and folk, and he was right: the public did buy the record. But just because a record sells doesn't necessarily mean that it's all that good, and It Had to Be You suffered from one simple thing: Stewart's talents and skills are not well-suited for traditional pop. Still, the concept was a good one so the record sold and spawned a sequel, As Time Goes By: The Great American Songbook, Vol. 2. Released a year later, nearly to the day, As Time Goes By is basically the same album as It Had to Be You, relying on a similar song selection of well-worn warhorses and adhering to the same simple, straight-ahead cocktail-bar arrangements as its predecessor. There are some slight differences, most notably the presence of two duets: a version of "Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered" with Cher, while Queen Latifah joins in on the title song (neither cut is very good, but Latifah is much better than Cher, who is less-suited for this material than Rod).
Track List (try tracks 1 and 11)

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