TRIBUTE - Robert Allen Palmer 1949-2003, English singer-songwriter, Producer, Grammy Award winner. The Power Station, Vinegar Joe, Dada, Alan Bown, Mandrakes.
Welcome to @Addiction_ers#RobertPalmer
"...remember what a fearless and trailblazing artist he really was. Not everything works, but you could say the same about Bowie... And judging him on that one video is akin to only remembering David Bowie for 'Let’s Dance'." ClassicPopMag
#RobertPalmer's 'Pride' is his first album from head to studio 'as conceived'. Check it out!
"It's not difficult to imagine why
It's just difficult to be satisfied"
"I worried that...sections of Pride
may yet prove inaccessible, notably
The Silver Gun. It's an (East) Indian song, he explains. It may be a little too much... I don't know how this one will fly, but I tried to make the song a little more mainstream by writing the English lyrics"
Track 10: 'THE SILVER GUN'
I could stand the heartache
If I could see you again
Until then, I am alone,
city to city
Walking the streets
With a heavy heart.
#RobertPalmer
"Excuse me, but I need a mouth like yours
To help forget the girl that just walked out my door
Don't you wanna be my fantasy?"
Excuse me, but I need your chemistry
(Prince - Let's Pretend We're Married)
"Day by day and night by night
I feel you in my mind..."
- 1983 Pride Tour
#RobertPalmer's 1983 cover of The System's 1982 song 'You Are In My System', featured their keyboardist/ songwriter David Frank. Palmer's vocals and delivery, as ever, lifted the song to a very memorable hit.
Today, Pride still feels like Robert Palmer at his coolest. 9 tracks in 'Waiting for' sustains the sleek, restless, pulsating, exhausting groove of the album. Entirely restless, experimental with lean, shiny and sharp edges. At once 80s new wave, but also far ahead of its time.
Track 9: 'WHAT YOU WAITING FOR' There are some things you can't ignore
Love and devotions won't conform
But it's not up to me or up to you
Vanity's, ideals demand
were satisfied
With what love plans
... Playing with AI is an experiment in seeing what it might get right, or wrong, as in the case of this booklet mock up. The song title is wrong, but the 80s vibe and the Bert Kitchen art is a contrast in dynamic for a cunningly clever album. Pride deserves the attention.
I began wondering what a reissue with a booklet would look like for 'Pride', an album of huge technical achievement, but overshadowed by all other 1980s #RobertPalmer albums. The movement from 70s funk rock to 80s pop rock segued through new wave and 'Pride' is a worthy mention
#RobertPalmer’s Pride album is all cool, hypnotic grooves and percussive minimalism, so “You Can Have It (Take My Heart)” stands out as a warmer, more melodic detour that breaks the album’s trance like flow without breaking its mood. It's 70s funk in an early 80s synth epic.
Track 8: 'YOU CAN HAVE IT (TAKE MY HEART)'
One night while I was sleeping, baby
Had a dream of you and I
Found myself asking you, baby
Take my hand and be my wife
RP: "I was working on a cajun rhythm one afternoon when Rupert Hine walked in and started playing a Glen Miller-style horn arrangement over it. It tickled us pink and, to top it off, I sang the wedding vows to the resulting tune. Making music is lots of fun."
Track 7: 'SAY YOU WILL'
Please say that I can take you this moment
Please say you'll let me take you for my wife
Our love will grow tonight if you will
Give me your answer,
give me your answer
#RobertPalmer’s “It’s Not Difficult” runs on a steady, repeating beat with early‑80s digital sounds and a very stripped‑back arrangement. His vocal is clean and direct, and the track relies on its tight groove rather than big melodies, giving it a cool, modern feel for its time.
RP: "I heard a white-label of this track in a club in Paris when I was finishing up the mixes for the 'Pride' album. I decided this had to make the
allbum so I flew back to the Bahamas,reconvened the band, cut it in 24 hours flat-out, flew back to Paris and mixed it in 12 hours."
Track 5: 'YOU ARE IN MY SYSTEM'
It's a romantic vision of me and you
It happens all the time
My dreams are filled with you
There's no doubt in my mind
That I'll be true baby
You know I'll take you out
And I'll keep lovin' you
#RobertPalmer
RP: "I have avoided the standard macho lyric content of a groove song, creating instead a broader, more fantastically erotic, context for the track - "Dance the unforeseen ". And dig the bass player Frank
Blair."