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Music CD - The Tony Rich Project: Birdseye
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Music CD: Birdseye
Artist: The Tony Rich Project
List Price: $17.98
Our Price: $2.87
Your Save: $ 15.11 ( 84% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: La Face
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Tracks:
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1. No Time Soon - (with Eric Clapton)
2. Silly Man - (with Eric Clapton)
3. Birdseye
4. Bed
5. If You're An Angel
6. Thoughts Of Leavin'
7. Ain't No Laughing
8. Blue Butterfly
9. My Stomach Hurts
10. Cool Like That
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Binding: Audio CD
EAN: 0730082604222
Label: La Face
Manufacturer: La Face
Number Of Discs: 1
Publisher: La Face
Release Date: 1998-08-11
Studio: La Face
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: A cd for those with deep earthy soul and genuine class
Comment: All the songs are such a poetic delight to listen to. Tony writes such fun, flirty lyrics that leave your imagination speckled with bursts of sunshine -- "take my heart and hook it up to your veins", "I baptized her in a bubblebath". Not even the more serious songs get me down. They leave me refreshed instead. Tony oozes Harlem class and the song "Birdseye" reminds me of the movie "LoveJones". Was it a soundtrack of the movie? If not, shoulda been!
An amazing buy you wont regret decades from today
Customer Rating:
Summary: Incredible, simply incredible
Comment: After hearing words, I couldn't get enough of Tony Rich and immediately bought his second album. This may just be the album to replace Words as my favorite album of all times.
In many ways, the albums are the same. Both end shortly after 40 minutes of play. Both are penned, produced and sung by Tony Rich. Both are amazing.
However, this album seems to have replaced the sadness that filled the tracks of Words with a lighthearted feeling of rejoice over the wonders of life.
The first two songs of the album, Birdseye and Silly Man seem at times, to have rather... strange lyrics. "But I found you/ So I'll bake you a chocolate cake" comes to mind. However, the simpleness of the songs reflects as someone else here put it best, that in love, you feel this easygoing relaxedness and just say what you like. And these songs embody that feeling, I listen to them and I can't help but feel uplifted and relaxed.
Song 3, my personal favorite, is incredibly catchy and reiterates that feeling of happiness in the world. Where "Grass is Green" on Words talked about living life hard and contemplating suicide, "No Time Soon" says while life had been that way, things improved and now, there's no reason to leave this world. The song is uplifting and gets the emotions running high.
The album then enters a somber state, pleading with a lost loved one to come back and take him away. The rest of the songs arouse all sorts of emotions and never fail to show a great deal of heart in Tony's voice. Tony pleads, rejoices and cries about the way things are. And in every action, the listener is right there beside him. Lamenting over the pains he feels in his stomach as he fights the loss of the loved one, exhibiting empathy towards the woman who is stuck in a horrible relationship but has no idea how to get out of it, and exemplifying all the feelings that run through a persons mind, Tony does it all.
This album is brilliant, evidence of the sorrowful state R&B has entered today. The world needs Tony Rich to remind it what can be done with music. I recommend this album to anyone.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Simply Beautiful...
Comment: Perhaps resigned to never reaching the commerical chart peaks of his debut single "Nobody Knows", Tony just relaxed and spoke from the heart on this, his second LP...These songs are of rare beauty and like many of his "neo-soul" labelled contemporaries he nods to influences (Prince being an obvious example) of a bygone era while all the while keeping his own individual style. Lyrically, here he may even improve on the heady heights of his excellent debut album of three years previous "Words". He is very open and emotional while never coming off as insincere or making cynical attempts to be anything other than what he is. The album as a whole is tremendous although personal favourites would be "If You're An Angel" and "My Stomach Hurts", both in which he bares his very soul. Eric Clapton features (Returning favour for Tony's work on his album of same year) with three guitar guest slots, but as always it's Mr Rich pulling the strings, writing and producing all but one of these lush, sonic landscapes. Tony has been relatively quiet since "Birdseye" and it would be a tragedy if this this album proves to be the last we ever hear from him. I am certain modern masterpieces like this and "Words" touched listeners very deeply (they did me) and he deserves far more credit as such...
Customer Rating:
Summary: birdseye
Comment: very nice album...you could just read the cd sleeve and enjoy it
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absolutely amazing album, that was sadly overlooked!
Comment: This is one of the best R&B albums that I own, and I own A TON! This album was a little too ahead of its time, and a little too mature for commercial airplay. It might fit in nicely now, in the world of Jill Scott, Blial, and Alicia Keys.
I haven't ever heard any of these songs on the radio, but that is fine with me. This is one of those albums that you have to take a leap, and just purchase based on either the recommendations of others or your love of the artist's past work. For me, I fell in love HARD with Tony's debut album. Just about everything on it was wonderful. A beautiful mix of acoustic guitar, classic soul music, and understated songwriting.
On the follow up, he grows even more as a songwriter - while providing even greater music to back him up. While on his debut there were songs that I skipped consistently, I didn't find one that I didn't love on this one. None of the songs sounded too this, or too that... everything sounds just right today, just as it did the day I bought it years ago!
The standouts on the album are probably Birdseye, If You're an Angel, Thoughts of Leavin', and My Stomach Hurts. The sensitivity that bleeds through the lyrics on the album will blow you away, as will the great instrumentation. Tony Rich does have a unique sound. He isn't quite classic soul, he isn't quite rock, and he isn't quite folk. He takes the best elements of those three genres, and blends them together for your enjoyment.
Who cares that this album didn't get airplay? I didn't, and I still don't. If you are looking for a diamond in the rough, you can stop your search!
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Editorial Reviews:
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You have to love any guy who compares the loss of a loved one to acid reflux, especially when that guy is supposed to be some kind of love man. Now, to be sure, Tony Rich's sophomore CD is filled with songs all about, surprise, sex, and love. But the low-key Lothario works his love jones with cleverness and lyrical twists and turns. Even at his most metaphoric (what is a "bed of the heart"?), Rich still can pull hooks, choruses, and off-the-beaten-path imagery out of his trick bag. Rich creates lilting love songs about the act of not killing oneself ("No Time Soon," which features slide guitar from Eric Clapton) and delivers the finger-popping title track, wherein the object of desire is described as "having Halle's eyes." Even with generic missteps such as "Cool Like That," Rich here takes a giant leap forward into the ranks of Real Songwriters. Too bad he can't claim to make the same moves when it comes to his vocals. Once tagged as just a (gifted) Babyface wannabe, Rich has upped the ante by adding Prince's dulcet tones to his pantheon of musical mimicry. Now, I guess you can't help sounding the way you do, but couldn't Rich could try to alter his phrasing just a little? Because as skilled as he is, he's still sort of faceless, and you never get to know just who the guy who writes the songs really is. --Amy Linden
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