I'm coming out...

I still love this album.



People give me strange looks when I mention this album. "So, McNulty. Heard the new Vampire Weekend album?" "Nah, been listening to Steve Winwood's 'Back in the High Life.'"

There are three people in the world who I wish I was born with similar pipes:

Ed Vedder
Steve Winwood
Spencer Krug from Wolf Parade

Winwood's voice is absolutely timeless. Sure, BITHL was your stereotypical 80's synth pop album, a total adult contemporary favorite. I remember hating this album when I was younger because my parents used to play it so often. But it's so fucking GOOD! Can't even consider it a guilty pleasure. The pleasure is all mine. I love the African influence and I've always been a sucker for synthesizers. Freedom Overspill = awesome. Finer Things? All-time epic Winwood classic. Higher Love? Fuck yeah. Even the title track is good. "All the doors I've closed one time have opened up again." Totally inspirational. Pat Bateman could have substituted BITHL for Phil Collins' "Sussudio" and it would have been just as funny.

Sure, it's not as compelling as his earlier work or his Traffic stuff, but it's still great on its own merits. I just might be the only 28 year old in Washington who has been listening to Back in the High Life. Rack me.

 

Is the name Patrick Bateman on your business card?

 

Steve Winwood doesn't even like that album.

 

I'm sensing the low spark of high-heeled boys.

 

No one in the band ever matched the material of Blind Faith by themselves.

 

Good coloring.

That's 'bone'

 

These two things made me laugh very loudly.

 

More or less than, "Prancing? Fuck yes!"

 

My dad loves this album. My dad has shitty taste.

 

I liked the remix of "Valerie" off his next album better.

When he and a DJ named Eric Prydz re-recorded it as "Call On Me" about five or six years ago, and I saw the video, I just about shit. It was like "hominahominahomina."

 

Who else thought something completely different when clicking on this thread title?

 

Raises hand.