Eric Clapton: Behind The Sun - 1985


1985 wasn't a great time for music, was it? Phil Collins seemed to be dominating everything and guess what? Yes, he produced this album, giving it that BIG, crashing eighties drum sound in places. 

While not as bad as some of the synthesiser-drenched offerings from his contemporaries at the time, there is still a feeling of "another Eric Clapton album and one that bowed to contemporary musical trends" about it, which was a problem all established artists suffered from by the mid-eighties and beyond. It differs in this respect from its blues rock/country rock predecessors. 

The successful single Forever Man was one of the album's best cuts, and the slightly Peter Gabriel-ish/world music-influenced See What Love Can Do was a fine single too. The slightly synthy but still punchy and soulful She's Waiting was a fine track too as was the classic Clapton blues of Same Old Blues (not the J.J. Cale song but a Clapton original) and Knock On Wood was covered acceptably. It All Depends and Tangled In Love are good ones too. It is a much better album than the next one up...

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