★★★★★
The title cut is the great novelty song that may be about the death of rock and roll or may be about its refusal to die. The other material here indicates that McLean himself believes the former, but since it also indicates that he couldn't have composed "American Pie"--he just took dictation from the shade of Buddy Holly, who must be taking some pretty strong drugs up there to make such a mistake--you might as well judge for yourself...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
More dreck from your unfriendly doomsaying hitmaker. Question: Why does he say "I feel like a spinnin' top or a dreidel" without explaining how a dreidel differs from a spinning top? Point of information: McLean's pubbery is called Yaweh Tunes, Inc. Point of order: No one who has sailed with Pete Seeger should put this much production into an album.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Tortuous homilies, mealy-mouthed four-syllable rhymes and stilted diction?this is the kind of craftsmanship that Don McLean palms off as poetry. It's all here on his third album, just as it was on Tapesiry and American Pie, only more so and worse. The phenomenon of McLean has been as destructive to rock culture as any of the events he alluded to so coyly in "American Pie." "The day the music died." Indeed, dead is the way McLean would have it, so that his brand of pseudo-philosophic Muzak could...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
At last Don McLean has made a thoroughly appealing album that properly showcases his impressive strengths ? sincerity, good humor, a lovely naive romanticism?while allowing only brief exposure of those traits that have previously proved embarrassing: a self-congratulatory streak that can slip into paranoia and a starry-eyed word gushing that doesn't always parse. Homeless Brother admirably fulfills the task of making McLean a credible artist once again. It erases any memory of his depressed co....
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Don McLean, whose T.S. Eliot-influenced coda to Sixties rock culture, "American Pie," is an austere landmark of rock & roll history, has resurfaced with a hit version of Roy Orbison's "Crying." Like Chain Lightning's other oldies ("It Doesn't Matter Anymore," "Lotta Lovin'," "Since I Don't Have You," "Your Cheating Heart"), "Crying" is sung much slower than the original. It's grimly earnest rather than passionate.Six new McLean songs?one a reworking of the Book of Genesis in pseudo-Victorian ve...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Don McLean's "American Pie" has ripped out of nowhere and taken the country by storm both in its album and truncated single versions. It took exactly two weeks to shoot to the top of the charts, everybody I know has been talking excitedly about it since first hearing, and, even more surprisingly, it has united listeners of musical persuasions as diverse as Black Sabbath and Phil Ochs in unbridled enthusiasm for both its message and it musical qualities...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
Everyone knows the song "American Pie", even if they've only heard the version recorded by Madonna included on her album, Music. The wistful melancholy at the song's heart, paired with its great melody and the slight mystery of its subject matter make for a classic pop song. In light of its inescapable, seemingly global, ubiquity, I wonder what Don McLean thinks of it...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2009-06-02
★★★★★
These 12 tracks were cut in 1978 and finally released three years later, scoring a Top 30 listing on the album charts and two hit singles, covers of Roy Orbison's "Crying" and the Skyliners' "Since I Don't Have You...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
★★★★★
Who would have expected that Believers -- part of the second phase of Don McLean's career -- would not only be one of his strongest albums of his whole career, but a solidly competitive singer/songwriter effort, even as late as 1981? Or that it holds up on CD in the 21st century...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-27
Loading...
