Melissa Manchester Albums (18)
'When I Look Down That Road'
Release Date 3/9/2004
Tracks 12
Label Koch
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
In the opening line of her album When I Look Down That Road, Melissa Manchester basically sums up the latter half of her career: "I've been walking through the smoke of a thousand burned-out dreams, so hard to shake the ashes of the past from my feet." As she knows all too well, there are sad circumstances in which the business of music envelops an artist so tightly that the creativity and passion are sealed away. In the '70s, Manchester blossomed as an important singer/songwriter responsible for such classics as "Midnight Blue," "Whenever I Call You Friend," and "Don't Cry Out Loud." But as her album sales began to decline, the corporate machinery began to take hold of her career and her original songs were left along the wayside to make way for glossy pop songs and sappy ballads written by "hitmakers." As a songwriter, she had all but disappeared. Leaving the recording studio after 1995's over-produced If My Heart Had Wings, Manchester spent almost a decade regrouping and getting in touch with the artist who had been lost for so many years. Reaching back to a time when the songwriting was just as important as the singer, Manchester reconnected with herself and recorded When I Look Down That Road, her first album of original material since 1978's Don't Cry Out Loud. In a welcome return to form, she has stripped away the many layers of bloated production and overwrought balladry that has dogged her work since the '80s to reveal a set of songs that quietly shine and stand brilliantly alongside her early work. In the album's opener, "I'll Know You By Your Heart," Manchester sounds revitalized and passionate against the song's sparse bluesy samba beat. The difference between this one song and her post-'70s output is immediate. Gone, thankfully, are the sweeping synthesizers, belted choruses, and saccharine sentiments, replaced with basic instruments, breezy melodies, and thoughtful lyrics. A mystical character named Pearl is brought to life in the Bonnie Raitt-styled "Angels Dancing," while Gertrude Stein is visited in the Latin-tinged "When Paris Was a Woman." Two beautiful ballads, "Bend" and "When I Look Down That Road," delicately play on the emotions without resorting to plastic sentiment. It has been a long time since she has sounded this vibrant and honest. When I Look Down That Road is a true comeback in every sense of the word and ranks among her best albums. Dormant for too long, Melissa Manchester's singer/songwriter soul has finally returned. ~ Aaron Latham, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Anyone familiar with Manchester's early '80s oeuvre might imagine that her Christmas album would be an overly sentimental prospect. And that would be a pity, because Joy contained her most sensitive, understated performance in years. She controlled her tendency to belt and chose excellent material (mainly secular Hollywood material) that all listeners could relate to. Next to classics like "White Christmas," her own material fared surprisingly well -- it was her strongest for some time, and the five-piece ensemble arrangements are particularly tasteful, considering what an overcrowded, grandiose genre Christmas albums normally are. ~ Charles Donovan, All Music Guide
'The Colors of Christmas'
Release Date 11/4/1997
Tracks 11
Label Capitol
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Manchester's first holiday collection is an acoustic set featuring traditional favorites including "I'll Be Home for Christmas" and "White Christmas" along with "When You Wish Upon a Star" and "Christmas Time Is Here," taken from the classic animated special A Charlie Brown Christmas. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
'Melissa Manchester Performs Pocahontas'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 3
Label Dove Audio
See Album Tracklist and Review
'If My Heart Had Wings'
Release Date 1/1/1995
Tracks 10
Label Atlantic
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Melissa Manchester's first album of new material in a decade was filled with big, dramatic ballads and widescreen production values. That was closer to what seemed a comfortable style for the singer than the dance-pop she had affected in the mid-1980s, but still did not return her to the creative promise she had shown in the mid-1970s. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
On her sole MCA album, Melissa Manchester gave melody and lyric equal billing with the synth-drums and other contemporary production techniques, rather than simply serving as a singer over dance tracks, as she had on Emergency. But much of Mathematics was still music-making by computer chip, which meant that she needed a hit single to re-start her career, and the title track, her final chart single, wasn't it. (Our favorite album credit of the year, hands down: "Body by Jake.") ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Melissa Manchester followed her comeback album Hey Ricky and single "You Should Hear How She Talks About You" with this collection of synthesized dance pop. Released between the 1983 success of the Flashdance soundtrack and the 1984 success of the Footloose soundtrack, the album was rooted in the same sort of quickstep electronic percussion and clouds of icy keyboard textures, with the vocalist a seeming afterthought. It was not music for fans of "Midnite Blue," but unfortunately it also failed to generate a hit single for teeny boppers, which meant it fell through the cracks commercially, and Arista dropped Manchester after a decade with the label. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Nearing the end of her troubled tenure at Arista, Melissa Manchester settled for cheesy but cheerful, synth-drenched dance-pop. Extraordinarily, it was this fluff that won her first Grammy, in the form of "You Should Hear How She Talks About You." But apart from a baffling re-recording of "Come in from the Rain," there are guilty pleasures to be found on Hey Ricky, not least its sassy title track. It's just that it's a world away from the unaffected, compelling artist Manchester had set out to be ten years before. ~ Charles Donovan, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Hearing Manchester squander her considerable vocal talents on faceless slabs of balladry like "Without You" is painful indeed. But this was clearly the ethos behind For the Working Girl -- production-line, off-the-peg songwriting that deserved only the most perfunctory reading, pointlessly invested with all manner of vocal histrionics. Only those with a boundless appetite for saccharine should dwell on lethargic numbers like "You and Me" and "If This Is Love" -- the rest should make a bee line for Manchester's own songs, which yet again beat everything else here by a mile. ~ Charles Donovan, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Melissa Manchester's seventh album, Don't Cry Out Loud, was preceded in the fall of 1978 by the single release of its title track, which went on to become a Top Ten hit, enabling the LP to become her highest and longest charting effort in several years. That's the way record company executives like things to work out, of course. But the success masked the essential differences between "Don't Cry Out Loud" the single and Don't Cry Out Loud the album. The song, written by Peter Allen and frequent Manchester collaborator Carole Bayer Sager, had been a minor R&B chart entry for the Moments in 1977 under the title "We Don't Cry Out Loud." Manchester's version, produced by Harry Maslin, used a tight band of top-flight Los Angeles session musicians -- Dennis Budimer and Lee Ritenour on guitars, Billy Payne on piano, David Hungate on bass, and Jim Keltner on drums. It was a moving, plaintive effort and a deserving hit. Don't Cry Out Loud the album was worthy, too, but it took a very different tack. Manchester collaborated with Motown-spawned writer/producer Leon Ware (Michael Jackson's "I Wanna Be Where You Are," Marvin Gaye's "I Want You") for this strictly New York session, which used another band of triple-scale session musicians including David T. Walker on guitar, Greg Phillinganes on electric piano, Richard Tee on acoustic piano, Chuck Rainey on bass, James Gadson on drums, and Lenny Castro on percussion. They produced a characteristically creamy jazz/pop sound, to which Ware added horn and string arrangements that made for a mild disco effect. He also brought in a minor Stevie Wonder song, "Bad Weather," which closed side one of the original LP. Otherwise, the songs were written or co-written by Manchester, with Ware joining in on "Almost Anything" and "Knowin' My Love's Alive." The R&B feel was less apparent on the second side (tracks six-ten), with Manchester even getting a solo piano performance on the ballad "Through the Eyes of Grace," a feeling examination of love and aging. The overall effect was a good mixture of artistic expression and commercial savvy, circa 1978, and although one might say the same thing of "Don't Cry Out Loud" the song, the single overshadowed the album to the extent that one of Manchester's better albums is rarely recognized as such. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide
