"Bustin' Out" by Pure Prairie League (1972)

Classic Rock Radio Staple: Amie

Another Song That Is Also Pretty Good: Jazzman

My Overall Rating of the Tracks Separately:
Above Average (2.5/4 stars)

My friend Doug used to insist that you could never buy a full-length release on the strength of one single -- he had apparently been burned too many times by that particular bait and switch.  When No Scrubs came out he commented that he liked the song and then stubbornly refused to buy the CD.  But the second he heard Unpretty, he ran out and scooped up "FanMail."  Typing this now, I realize that those are both good songs, but they're also both very girl-powery.  You go, Doug!

If Jazzman had been released as a single, "Bustin' Out" would have met Doug's goofy criteria.  It's a good song.  And Amie is a great song.  However, there's not much else going here on besides that.  Doug would have been disappointed in "Bustin' Out."  Hell, it may even have changed his whole way of thinking, possibly upping the stakes to as many as three good songs required before purchase.  I can see Doug now ratlling off the hit singles like The Count in Sesame Street as he stands in the line at Best Buy, waiting to purchase his copy of "Oops.. I Did It Again" (I'll stick with the theme he established).  I then imagine him -- two hours later -- changing the requirement to full listening disclosure before purchase.

Anyway, Pure Prairie League is definitely not aiming for the fences here.  There's one song with a discernable electric guitar, but otherwise all the tracks sound pretty much the same.  There's a tune called Angel No. 9 and another one just called Angel; and the tracks don't even have anything to do with each other (as opposed to Tom Petty's copout on "She's the One" with Angel Dream  (No. 4) and Angel Dream (No. 2) -- that's a whole lotta similarities for not a lot of value).  Additionally, Falling in and out of Love with You and Amie share so many lyrics and melodies, PPL would have been much better to just slam them together into a single song.  Or, preferably, they could have just leve FiaooLwY off completely.

But in the end, I sat in my chair and bopped along because this is a kind of music I really enjoy.  It sounds like the Allman Brothers when they're not being bluesy or jammy.  Next time though, I'll just listen to the Allman Brothers.

So, is it an album?  Yes.  Surprisingly, its narrowness of scope makes it remarkably cohesive, albeit pretty dull.  I guess being an album is not necessarily a positve thing.

Up next, we definitely gets some bluesiness and jamminess as we swing back to the eighties with "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.