Re: Eric Carmen R.I.P.

Something of a punchline for awhile but huge hits and genuine TP-friendly origins in the power pop world with the Raspberries.
[ericcarmen.com]

A power pop giant turned power schlock ogre turned, in recent years I gather, a MAGA asshat. The Raspberries remain great regardless.

Yeah, I was stunned to see how much of virulent right-wing nut he turned out to be. I was never much of a fan, but he had some brilliant moments in the Raspberries, above all "Overnight Sensation." Love that single to bits.

I liked some of his "schlock" - "All By Myself" is terrible, but I loved "Make Me Lose Control" and some of the other hits were also good. And Raspberries had a lot of classic songs. I hadn't realized that the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack resurfaced some of those songs for a younger audience.

Pitchfork has a very respectful obituary:
[pitchfork.com]

Carmen was Power Pop royalty but with a penchant to wimp out on ballads solo-wise. Not so much on "Make Me Lose Control," which I thought was a late-in-the-game sign of life! Not fit to shine the shoes of "Go All The Way," of course, but it was the quintessence of good radio pop for its time period! Every household needs at least a Raspberries comipilation, and I have two, if you count the cute l'il CD-3 that Rhino put out in '88.

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/05/2024 04:59PM by Post-Punk Monk.

I used to freelance for the Cleveland Scene (weekly entertainment pub), a just-for-fun side gig from my day job repairing commercial kitchen equipment. I was working on a food steamer in the kitchen of an E. side restaurant one day when I overheard a waitress complain that some guy left without paying his bill. The name on the tab was Eric Carmen.

I said I might be able to help and took her contact info. I passed it along to Scene editor Jim Gerard, who got in touch with Carmen. Next time I was in the restaurant the waitress thanked me – said he’d taken care of his bill. True story.

Another recollection, as told to me by Girard – he and Carmen went to a Wings concert in Cleveland and both came away agreeing that John Lennon really was the Beatles.

Hmmm, Eric's recent passing has brought something to my attention -- maybe something that always was there.

There's a record shop in the Twin Cities area that I've bought quite a few used records from, in recent years. They send out their New Arrivals email blast every Wednesday.

This week's New Arrivals includes not one, but two Raspberries albums.

I wonder if those albums had been sitting in their regular sale bins for a while, and had suddenly been re-instated as "new arrivals" to capitalize on an anticipated surge of interest in the band.

Anyone here ever encounter this sort of ... well, let's be polite and call it "marketing"?