610. Terence Trent D'Arby - The Hardline According to Terence Trent D'Arby (1987)

















Track Listing

1. If You All Get To Heaven
2. If You Let Me Stay
3. Wishing Well
4. I'll Never Turn My Back On You (Fathers Words)
5. Dance Little Sister
6. Seven More Days
7. Let's Go Forward
8. Rain
9. Sign Your Name
10. As Yet Untitled
11. Who's Lovin' You

Review

I must be one of the few people in the world who really likes Terence Trent D'Arby, at least he is included in this list, and maybe a re-apreciation of his work, and particularly of this album is in order. This is a guy who is a bit of Prince, a bit of Jackson and a bit of Sam Cooke all rolled into one.

There are very few R&B albums which mention Asmodeus and Belial in one track while they advise the consumption of magic mushrooms in another one, and still manage to have big hits. It is also rare to find albums of this kind where the singer writes, composes and plays many of the instruments here.

All that being said the album is dated of course, but that is not a necessarily bad thing, it is of its time, but it is very good in its context. Hell I'd rather listen to this than to any Michael Jackson (with the notable exception of Off The Wall). So here's to Terence, who is now called Sananda Maitreya.

Track Highlights

1. Sign Your Name
2. Rain
3. Wishing Well
4. Who's Loving You

Final Grade

9/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

Sananda Maitreya was born as Terence Trent Howard. His former stage name, Terence Trent D'Arby, came from taking his adoptive father's, James Benjamin Darby's, family name, and including an apostrophe. At the early years when he joined the Band The Touch he used Terence Trent Darby as his stage name without an apostrophe. The name Sananda Maitreya, on the other hand, purportedly came to the artist in a series of dreams, after which he considered it to reflect his present self better than his former stage name. Said Maitreya: "After intense pain I meditated for a new spirit, a new will, a new identity.

Sign Your Name: