A Night On The Town - ROD STEWART***

Tonight's The Night/The First Cut Is The Deepest/Fool For You/The Killing Of Georgie/The Balltrap/Pretty Flamingo/Big Bayou/The Wild Side Of Life/Trade Winds

Vocalist Rod Stewart continued to enjoy immense popular success despite the transition from good time rocker towards MOR territory. A Night On The Town tries to ride both horses, without fully satisfying either camp. (US:2 UK:1)

“Rod Stewart once had the ability to treat cover songs as if they was his own, and his version of The First Cut Is The Deepest is a classic. Pretty Flamingo is great too, and on The Killing Of Georgie he shows that he can write some good songs too.”

“Separated into two sides, one for the ballads the other for the rockers. It starts off well enough with the first side containing the three hit singles, two of them self-penned and each of them seeing him more than living up to his self-proclaimed soubriquet of story-teller, firstly the disarming seduction of Tonight's The Night, the superb The Killing Of Georgie and the well-chosen cover of The First Cut Is The Deepest. There's not much more after that I'm afraid.”

“Rod Stewart has made possibly every type of song in his illustrious career, and this album is a fine example of just how diverse Rod is. This is one of those albums where you don't skip to the next track; every track is that good. The slow half features the obviously slower, lovelier tracks, while the fast half features throw-it-in-your-face boogie down songs.”

“This is quite possibly the last musically credible album Rod Stewart put out before he turned into a leopard skin clad king of disco dirge, but having said that it still isn't a patch on his earlier solo output. Most of the album is pretty ordinary, and biggest problem with the faster tracks is that they sound like a very poor man's watered down Rolling Stones.”

“Rod's done us the service of breaking the songs up stylistically on this record. If you want to listen to slow cheesy songs listen to side one. It starts off with the groan-inducing Tonight's The Night and goes downhill from there. If you want to listen to fast songs listen to side two. Rod must have found himself in a bit of a quandary with Trade Winds. It's a slow song that ends up on the fast side.”