OK if this guy is seen near your local school, please tell them to go into lockdown mode. Though I will readily admit that the insane stare is what led me to purchase this, without knowing anything about the music. Note that this is a Playboy production-- yes, they did produce records too, back in those glorious seventies (specifically, from about 1973 to 1979). In fact we should be well acquainted with the 1973 release called Ivory, which Tom once reviewed, and which indeed is a fine and recommended album.
Oh those days when Playboy ruled the world! At one time this little magazine and its ridiculous slippered and multi-silicone-pillowed founder had an empire that included not just publishing but videos, bars or 'gentleman's clubs,' TV shows, and of course records, before first video in the eighties and finally internet in the nineties destroyed its premise like those parasitic wasps that lay eggs inside crickets and whose larvae then consume the insect slowly from the inside, the least important organs first, until only the shell remains. Those who grew up in the seventies or earlier will always have fond memories of those foldout 'centerfolds' and the hyperbolically liberal articles, interviews, and bizarre letters that always seemed more teen fantasy than reality. What I particularly loved about Playboy was the sheer beauty of the contents (the human contents that is), which no other mag or rag could come close to, particularly when they went into the video market. Today when any random google search avalanches us in completely naked women popping up in the most compromising (for husband) positions (and what's worse, the vast majority are barely attractive) it's hard for us not to get nostalgic about these old magazines which boys shared with each other secretly, though always mother would find the 'stash' somehow and confiscate it and yell at us-- while father would return them to us the next day with more from his own-- hold on, nostalgia over porn? admittedly not the first time I've spoken on this issue...
There are spoken word intros to many of the songs which really detract and distract, as if this were the recording of an interview, which maybe it was. Songs range from pop to country with not too much hook to hang an ear from. Hilariously the record isn't even well made, perhaps due to all the distractingly large-breasted hangers-on with lacking clothing from Playboy head office, it shuts off one second right after the last music instead of letting the needle slowly swirl down into the middle as a proper toilet paper should on its way down.
Information from the database here. In this discogs bio it says Michael is most famous for writing for Elvis. And indeed his song "Sweet Emily" bears a distinct resemblance to the beautiful and far superior Elvis song, made famous by B.J. Thomas, called "I just can't help believin'" (written by Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann) with the same descending chord structure:
And let's all of a certain age remember those beautiful Playboy days tonight with a toast.
