DAVID CASSIDY : ROMANCE

 

  1. Touched By Lightning
  2. The Last Kiss
  3. Thin Ice
  4. Someone
  5. The Letter
  6. Heart of Emotion
  7. Tenderly
  8. She Knows All About Boys
  9. Remember Me

Label : Arista

Release Year : 1985

Length : 43:33

Review (AllMusic) : Relocating to England after a successful stint on Broadway in the early '80s (he had the title role in Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat), David Cassidy joined forces with Alan Tarney, a producer who'd had several soft rock hits with Cliff Richard and Leo Sayer at the dawn of the '80s but who had recently turned into a hot property thanks to his work on a-ha's "Take on Me." Cassidy's resulting 1985 album Romance naturally leans closer to Richard than a-ha's new wave synth pop, yet the LP is slathered in synths, from its shimmering surfaces right down to its rhythms. It is, without question, a quintessentially '80s record, and it's also a quintessentially European record, relying on sprightly, tacky dance cuts, percolating midtempo pop, and an over-abundance of ballads designed for televised pageant, all crossed with a heavy George Michael influence (the man himself sang on the song "The Last Kiss," a single that went to number six in the U.K.). It's a sound that's oddly suited for this very American pop star, possibly because he's comfortable in any manner of prefabrication, so he never seems out of place within the crystalline synthetic surfaces here. There aren't a lot of knock-out songs here, but there aren't many bad ones, and the entirety plays like what it is: a solid, forgotten, mainstream pop album from the height of the MTV era.

Review (Wikipedia) : Romance was David Cassidy's seventh studio album as a solo artist and his first released by Arista Records. Released in 1985, Romance was the only studio album Cassidy released during the 1980s. Since growing out of his teen idol fame from The Partridge Family, Cassidy continued to try to re-invent his music career; however, in the United States, his latter albums from the 1970s did not chart. Therefore, for the album Romance, Arista excluded a U.S. release and released the album only in Europe, Israel, Japan, South Africa and Australia. Romance hit no. 20 on the British charts in May 1985. George Michael sang on the song, "The Last Kiss" which peaked at #6 in the UK Top 40 and charted all over Europe and in Australia. Subsequent singles from the album - "Romance (Let Your Heart Go)" and "Someone" - were minor hits in comparison. However, the last single from the album "She Knows All About Boys" was a Pan European #1. The album written prior to and after the marriage of Cassidy to Meryl Tanz was written about their marriage and David gives both Meryl and her daughter Caroline thanks for the two years it took to bring it to fruition. The album is produced by Alan Tarney. Tarney also wrote or co-wrote (with David Cassidy) all songs on the album with the exception of "She Knows All About Boys".