Eric Carmen News

Eric Carmen: Section 1
An Introduction

Eric Carmen's last US release was "Eric Carmen" on Geffen Records, released in the US on January 7, 1985.

His most recent studio album, "Winter Dreams," was released in January 1998 in Japan. It remains unreleased in the United States. You have to wonder "why?"

I didn't like "Winter Dreams" the first few times I heard it (hard to imagine for a guy, me, who named his son Eric in fanship of Eric Carmen).

Problems: the writer of the Raspberries "I'm A Rocker" doesn't rock on this album. The man often called "a Godfather of power pop" has no power pop tunes on this release. Coming from a rock and roll genius, which I consider Eric to be, both facts bring immediate disappointment to Eric's Raspberries' fans.

With Raspberries, Eric produced four acclaimed albums and seven Hot 100 hits in 1972-74 (including "Go All The Way" and "Overnight Sensation," named among the 100 greatest singles of all-time by Spin and Rolling Stone magazines respectively). Four Raspberries singles made the national Top 40, with three making the Top 20 (with "Go All The Way" hitting # 5 and selling 1.3 million copies).

Eric's success since going solo in 1975 has been sporadic at best.

His first self-titled album on Arista was brilliant, with three Top 40 singles (including the Top 20 hits "All By Myself" and "Never Gonna Fall In Love Again," both based on the music of Sergei Rachmaninov). That album, produced by Raspberries' producer Jimmy Ienner with Raspberries drummer Michael McBride on board, sold 500,000 units and was certified gold, although it took two years to do so even with the hits.

Eric's next three albums, minus Ienner and McBride, faired less well. His crowning achievement, "Boats Against The Current," was an album that should have gone Top 10 in 1977 --- it deserved to be, from the standpoint of musicianship, arranging, producing, vocals and songwriting creativity (Eric wrote all the songs, and can write some incredible lyrics, among the best in rock). But the album peaked at #44 (for two weeks), despite being a Billboard "Spotlight" album in August 1977 (a "Spotlight" album is one the magazine predicts will go Top 10).

Still, between 1977-80, he had only three more Top 40 hits, and his last Arista album, his most rocking solo effort, produced no Top 40 hits when released in 1980 ("It Hurts Too Much" barely made the Top 80, and two further singles didn't chart at all).

Arista dropped Eric and five years passed before he had another album, a self-titled release on Geffen in 1985 (produced by Don Gehman, producer of John Mellencamp, and Bob Gaudio, formerly of The Royal Teens and The Four Seasons and producer of Frankie Valli's "Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You").

The Geffen release was prompted by the Ann Wilson-Mike Reno Top 10 hit in 1984, "Almost Paradise," from the film "Footloose," co-written with lyricist Dean Pitchford.

With the Geffen release, Carmen and Pitchford began a songwriting partnership that continues to this day (co-writing Eric's Top 40 hits "I Wanna Hear It From Your Lips" in 1985 and "Make Me Lose Control" in 1988).

The Geffen album fizzled and Eric was dropped by the label. Although he did record a duet with Louise Mandrell on RCA of "As Long As We Got Each Other" that hit # 51 on the US country charts and an independent single release of "The Rock Stops Here" in 1986, Eric was without a recording contract until "Hungry Eyes" for the film "Dirty Dancing" on RCA in 1987. Eric's cover of the song brought Eric back into the Top 10 for the first time, as a performer, since "All By Myself" in 1975.

Eric again went Top 10 in 1988 with the single "Make Me Lose Control" (now re-signed to Arista) and a hit album "Best Of..." hitting # 59 that year. The next single, a cover of "Reason To Try," barely hit the Hot 100 at the end of 1988.

Billboard's end-of-the-year rankings placed Eric (with three charting singles and a charting album) in the Top 10 among all male recording artists of 1988!

It was then surprising that Eric's duet with Merry Clayton of "Almost Paradise (Live)" (RCA) in 1989 didn't chart at all. The album it was from, Eric's first and only (to date; a Raspberries' live album will follow the reunion tour in 2000) live album, "Dirty Dancing Live" (RCA) also did not chart.

Eric then spent considerable time trying to put together a solo album for Arista in the early 1990s, only to see it rejected by the label. Eric's cover of Diane Warren's "My Heart Stops" as a single in 1992 (released on Cassette and CD singles) also failed to chart, and he was dropped by Arista, again.

It is worthwhile to note that two of Eric's 1988 hits, "Make Me Lose Control" and "Reason To Try," both feature Mark Hudson on backup vocals. Mark was lead singer of The Hudson Brothers ("So You Are A Star") and recently produced the album "Vertical Man" by Ringo Starr.

Fast forward to 1995, 10 years after Eric's last studio album. Eric is signed to a Japanese label for a Japanese-release. Eric spends 1995-97 preparing this 1998 release, "Winter Dreams".

Websites: Eric Carmen Home Page, Official Raspberries Website http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/9440 , Raspberries Lyrics http://www.summer.com.br/~pfilho/html/english/raspberries/sum (lyrics), Raspberries Rickenbackers , Eric Carmen Bio http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/9440/ericbio.html , Eric Carmen Rare CD Record COLLECTOR'S ITEMS and Eric Carmen - Eric Carmen .