Half a fine album

Conveniently enough, on this album Rod's lined up the material in descending order of quality. THE GOOD: the first four songs are among his best in his sensitive-singer-songwriter mode. Megahit "Tonight's the Night" holds up well as a tender/slightly sleazy sexual awakening song, "First Cut" is just plain beautiful, and "Killing of Georgie" is brave and moving especially for a man's man like Rod. THE SO-SO: the four rockers that follow aren't bad, but it's kinda hard to tell where one leaves off and the next begins because they're all in the same midtempo, whiteboyboogie, "whoo, what a bad boy am I" mode. On the albums previous to this (especially on the four classic Mercury albums that form the core of his artistic reputation) he's shown that he can rock in many more ways than this. And for a fellow who at the time was treating women like tissue paper to whine about how one of them has him in a "Balltrap"... well, all I can say is it serves you right, Roddy. THE WRETCHED: "Trade Winds", one of the most godawful Brotherhood of Man songs ever written. Better folks than Rod have failed at this same theme because it's a hard one - put one foot wrong and you're wading in the syrup. To sum up: if you're not a Stewart completist you might be better served by buying a best-of that has "Tonight's", "First Cut" and "Georgie" on it - I'm sure there's one available.

Man About Town

Night On The Town is not quite up to the standards of Rod Stewart's early work on the Mercury label (Every Picture Tells A Story & Never A Dull Moment to name two), but is still an excellent album and the best he did on the Warner Brothers label. On the original vinyl release, the album was broken up into the slow and fast sides and it shows that Mr. Stewart could rock as good as anyone and had the ability to take the lights down low. The Balltrap" and "Trade Winds" are solid rockers as is "Pretty Flamingo", but it is the slower songs that carry the album. "Tonight's The Night" is the big hit from the album (spending eight weeks at number in late '76) and is ode to a girl's first sexual encounter. He takes Cat Steven's "The First Cut Is The Deepest" and makes it all his own by giving it his classic, whiskey-soaked vocal treatment. The best track on the album is "The Killing Of Georgie (Parts I & II)" which tells the tale of the demise of a gay friend. The song could have made the situation seem contrite, but Mr. Stewart sings the song in such a genuine way, he overcomes the possible sappiness.

Some okay stuff on it

This is the point where I thought Rod Stewart was losing it. Something about it was thin compared to previous works, which had a richness and depth and complexity that this one lacked. It had a few good ones, but mostly sounded tinny by comparison to his earlier music. Back in '76 when this came out on vinyl, I bought it. Then I think I bought two more albums after this one, but only because I was so wishing he could recapture some of what he had delivered on his earlier albums and with the Faces. I was disappointed with both. Incidentally, it was interesting to read Mr. Eakes' comments above, that the CD grew on him after he set it aside and tried it again later. I always had found that all of Rod Stewart's (and most of the Faces') works started off not doing that much for me on the first listen, but then growing better and better and better with repeated exposure, which I decided was the true mark that it was "art" and not pop junk that wore out quickly. But it was with "Night on the Town" that Stewart was moving away from the art and toward the pop junk.