Kim Carnes
Mistaken Identity

THE REVIEW

Things that make cptgaio realize that Spring is back:

A) Vega becomes observable again after Winter (as a kid this kind of worried me a bit...)

B) The scent of the first blooming of the Dandelion

C) The urge to listen to "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes

The damn Flowering of 1981.

Seasons may not be what they used to be, but the first warmth always reminds me of when, as a child, the greatest thrill was waiting for the bell at one o'clock (which marked the end of the school day) and then rushing with my friends into fields generously offered by provincial life: it was all a matter of jumping over ditches and catching lizards and various critters (no animals were harmed during the writing of this "review"). Then in the evening, as the days grew longer after each Spring Equinox (and with our parents' permission), we could meet up in some courtyard in our neighborhood to play together. I particularly remember one evening in May while we were playing a game that was particularly "stupid" (in a good way), which required the presence of a radio, a local station played the song from point "C)".

At that moment, as I was getting ready to "portray," motionless, the noble figure of the "tractor driver" (as country children we always had a vivid imagination...) I realized my life would never be the same: the next day I convinced my grandfather to buy me a record player (I still have mine...do you?) and spent the whole day searching for the single in question, with only the help of my "undeniable" vocal abilities and my (legendary) memory for melodies (since I didn’t even know the title, obviously). Eventually, we found it, and that started my career as a musical pain in the neck... (for better or worse?)

"She'll put her music on, you won't think twice. She is pure as New York snow, she has Bette Davis eyes" (Donna Weiss & Jackie DeShannon)

It goes without saying that often, even now, on Spring evenings, I find myself searching local FM stations (even though I own the record in at least three formats, the nostalgia effect is incomplete without the "chance") for the song: I must say, it’s never that hard to find...

Over the years, I’ve become a bit of everything, from metalhead to trip-hopper (is that how you say it?) passing through anything you can think of like a metaphorical Arturo Brachetti but in the end, the (Pop) imprinting remained and to that (increasingly commercial until the final victory) I'll return...

Talk a bit about the album and not just about your own stuff, crikey...

"Mistaken Identity" (1981) is the sixth album by the hoarse-voiced blonde and the album for which she will be remembered "in saecula saeculorum": the reason is, essentially, the presence of "Bette Davis Eyes". The single (written by Jackie DeShannon with the collaboration of Donna Weiss in 1974, and included in the album "New Arrangement" in 1975 and then "loaned" six years later to Kim) will make her one of the most brilliant examples of, precisely, "One Hit Wonder".

Besides the extensively cited song, the album offers a good (but certainly not transcendent) Pop-FmRock with elegant blues undertones and some foray into exotic realms (or at least as the chart demands of those years required), especially in the often South American-flavored rhythmic choices. Catchy and, as is now commonly said, "catchy," to attract the airwaves aficionados of that era, now as of now suffers from the passage of time but remains a good product of 80s pop-rock "archaeology". To listen only if you feel like some Indiana Jones of the second art...

...or to experience ancestral thrills...

Mo.