Player (1977) Tryin to Write a Hit Song - LOST 70s GEMS

 I love 70s pop rockers, Player's debut album, released in 1977, its a diverse set of matrial that encompasses soft rock in many variants. The xylophone of Goodbye (That's All I Ever Heard) is reminiscent of latter day America and Starbuck's brand of easy listening/yacht rock, while Melanie and Cancellation contains the hard edged arena rock of their latter albums. The big hits, Baby Come Back and This Time I'm in It For Love are based around harmony punctuated balladry and soothing, romantic sentiments. All of this underlined by the odd funky guitars scratch, or the deep, twangy synthesizers often found in the work of Gino Vannelli and Boz Scaggs' brand of smooth disco pop; two artists they opened for. This album manages to merge arena rock, soft rock, yacht rock, Countrypolitan and soul all dressed in a wide ranging funky ballad sound.

 The anomalous, country rock song, Tryin to Write a Hit Song closes an album filled with funky soft rock, disco ballads, jazzy instrumentals and hard rock vocals. It's a mellow ballad that builds from sporadic flamenco guitar to sweeping strings to heavy guitars; all underlining the engaging lead vocals of JC Crowley, the band's second singer; whose manly vocals and high falsetto were such a near match for the lead singer, Peter Beckett, that it's hard to tell whose singing which song without the help of liner notes.

 Crowley shines on songs like Love is Where you Find it and the Oberheimer driven/Hall and Oates styled blue eyed soul of Come on Out; and particularly here, bringing conviction to the R. L. Mahonin tune about a staff songwriter failing to connect with his emotional state. The best lyric is the line 

"I should have listened when you said I wouldn't be Some kind of hero, I would be only me
You should have told me there were some better than I, I'm learning the hard way that what I got no one will buy". It's great line about being humbled as well as the dual feelings of inferiority and insecurity; it reminds me of the Eagles' New Kid in Town, on the theme of being 'replaced' and Gordon Lightfoot's If I Could Read Your Mind, on the line about trying to be the 'hero'. Ironically two 'hit songs' the singer would've loved to have written no doubt :P