DISCUSSION: Christine's songs from Heroes Are Hard to Find
 

I love Bad Loser. It works perfectly. And it would sound great live.

Prove Your Love is the best written song on the record, but it could benefit from a slight increase of tempo.

Come a Little Bit Closer is a fine folk ballad but the arrangement is so overblown. It would have sounded great with just a piano, or maybe an acoustic guitar-bass-light drums.

Heroes is a punchy little song with a great vocal, but I don't really see it as the "hit" FM wanted it to be.

Her voice on this record is great, but it and her songs often get drowned out by the production.

I love these songs!!! 'Prove Your Love' is likely my favorite song by Christine.

Love all Christine's songs on this album.. love her on bob's too...

I miss her very much...

I miss her too.:nod:

I have to admit that HAHTF-era Christine is my least favorite. Something is off about this album as a whole (the sound is generally murky and distant). Perhaps all of the pot smoke in the studio somehow got etched onto the master tape? I get this sense that a malaise had set in after the latest personnel shakeup. As a foursome it sounds like they were just treading water here; Christine couldn't be bothered to write anything beyond these simple two- or three-chord songs that even a horn section could not disguise. And I don't think Bob Welch was a good influence since, in the absence of another competing singer/guitarist, he could kick back, toke up and crank out lazy two-chord mood pieces like "Safe Harbour." Bob Welch lowered the bar and unfortunately it seems like Christine followed suit. In hindsight, I guess it makes sense that the album sounds like it was recorded in a subterranean cave- they had to drown it in reverb to cover up the many flaws with these songs. It was the one misstep in an incredibly prolific string of great albums.

I think it was just too much on Christine and especially Bob to "carry" the whole load of an album. Remember Bob quite a few months after this album. Lindsey would have probably had a hard time also, so it was probably good that FM added 2 new members instead of just the one. After all, they never replaced the Walker/Weston duo, who themselves replaced Danny, who "carried" the band after Peter left.

As much as I share some of your concerns about the record (mostly with the production) I don't agree that the band tried to "cover up the many flaws" with reverb, etc... All accounts reveal the band were particularly confident about HAHTF. They worked very consciously on creating a new "sound." While the production fails, they didn't think so.

And for what it's worth, I also don't agree that the songs are weak. At least three of Christine's songs were, on paper at least, her best to date. And about half of Welch's songs are pretty strong on paper, too. The band just sound too fried or exhausted to infuse the music with any vitality.

Ironically, their live shows from this period are damn good!