Michael Martin Murphey
Americana

Pop: nowadays, this magical little three-letter word immediately evokes horrible radio hit songs, manufactured characters, music videos with dances, branded clothes, cell phones, and various trinkets flaunted, and consequently gossip, marketing, and other fluff of this kind. It's a real shame because pop is something else entirely, as demonstrated by Michael Martin Murphey's "Americana," dated 1987. It is certainly not a milestone in the vast discography of the great performer of "Geronimo's Cadillac," "Wildfire," "Carolina In The Pines," or "What's Forever For." If you're new to MMM, my advice is to start with some other work, but "Americana" manages to be appreciated for its truly pop spirit: not country/western, not folk or bluegrass, just pure and simple pop distilled into 37 minutes and 10 songs, almost all with strong radio appeal but never tacky or banal, creating a very pleasant and smooth album, conceived with the usual and consummate skill typical of the maestros like Michael Martin Murphey.

The lively "A Face In The Crowd" kicks off the dance, a nice, rhythmic pop-rock with a pleasantly 80s AOR aftertaste, featuring MMM's voice intertwining with that of singer Holly Dunn. But the best comes with the next two songs, "A Long Line Of Love" and "Once Upon A Time", the two highest peaks of "Americana": the first is an acoustic ballad with a warm and relaxing sound, enriched by counterpoint choruses in the chorus—a perfectly crafted song that, if recorded by any renowned European singer, would have become a worldwide hit. The second is a true musical fresco that goes beyond the pop framework of the album, with its evocative orchestral intro of over a minute, its piano lines, and MMM's breathtaking interpretation, creating a masterpiece with an evocative and almost magical flavor. Following these three heavyweights, the album continues with other beautiful songs like the passionate "Out Of Touch", the carefree "Almost Free", reaching high levels of creativity with "Worlds Apart", a vaguely 60s-class pop, adorned with a sax solo, and "You're History", a colorful and fun retro digression, with trombone, trumpet, and clarinet; there are also a couple of more than decent slow songs, "No One Else But You" and "My Darling Wherever You Are", but our artist redeems himself with the closing "I'm Never Gonna Let You Go", for which the same argument made with "A Long Line Of Love" holds: a wonderful ballad that, between music box, choirs, piano, and an unexpected guitar solo, closes the album in great style.

Perhaps the only thing this album lacks is a bit of rock grit, but even as it is, "Americana" remains an excellent example of true, authentic, and genuine pop music, a further manifesto of its creator's eclecticism and genius, which deserves to be much better known.