27. Everly Brothers - A Date With the Everly Brothers (1960)





















Track Listing

1. Made To Love
2. That's Just Too Much
3. Stick With Me Baby
4. Baby What You Want Me To Do
5. Sigh Cry Almost Die
6. Always It's You
7. Love Hurts
8. Lucille
9. So How Come
10. Donna Donna
11. Change Of Heart
12. Cathy's Clown

Review

Fun fun album. You know it's the kind of late 50's, early 60's American diner music. And it's oh so much fun, so teenagery and boppy. Also a bit vacuous. Still, part of this albums charm is its complete lack of pretention to be anything other than an album for teenage girls and a fucking good one at that. I'm gonna sound old now, but they don't make teenager music like this anymore. If only Westlife and company had a third of the talent of these guys I'd happily listen to them.

It is quite an enjoyable album to listen to, even if it were just for retro value. Fortunately there's more to it than that. You can clearly hear how these guys influenced early Beatles for example, actually I enjoy this more than early Beatles, there's a nice purity to it. Also there's the incredible harmonics here which come about from the fact that the Everly are brothers, meaning genetics plays a great part in how their voices are practically identical, making for near perfect harmonics, almost as if they were dubbing themselves.

Apart from this they make the most infectious teeny bopper songs, and I defy anyone to listen to this and not get a silly grin on their face while attempting to do 50's dance moves. Even the non-original songs on this album are great, Lucille, for example is one of the best tracks in the whole album.

On the downside you get exactly the same arguments that are on the upside, it's teenagy dance pop. Some of the lyrics are very teenage angst ridden, like Sigh, Cry, Almost Die, and How Come (No One Loves Me), which again make the songs very "cute" but too directed to the teenage market. So basically it gets a plus for being unassuming teenage pop and a minus for being unassuming teenage pop.

If you want this album you can't get it in Napster or iTunes so just download it and become an outlaw forever chased by the Man, or buy the album at Amazon UK or US.

Track Highlights

1. Made to Love
2. Cathy's Clown
3. Lucille
4. Donna Donna

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

I wonder if they ever had a threesome with a groupie... that would be a story to tell your grandchildren. If you were a groupie with The Everly Brothers in the late 50's early 60's and had a synchronized sexual experience with highly harmonic moaning, drop me a line.

From Wikipedia

In addition to both being competent guitarists, they used a style of close-harmony singing, in which each brother sang a tune that could often stand on its own as a plausible melody line. This was in contrast to 'classic' harmony lines which, while working well alongside the melody, would sound strange if heard by themselves. One of the best examples of their close-harmony work is their recording of "Devoted To You."