| | Chris Isaak Forever Blue CD Chris Isaak Discography of CDs
 (4 Customer Reviews)
FOREVER BLUE was nominated for a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Rock Album. "Somebody's Crying" was nominated for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. What most people remember about Chris Isaak's infamous video for the 1989 single "Wicked Game" ... Full Descriptionis that he gets the beautiful woman. That's because most people weren't listening. Chris Isaak's entire oeuvre is about losing beautiful women, and he has lost them with a heart-rending relentlessness that makes Roy Orbison seem like a romantic success in comparison.
The remarkable FOREVER BLUE, his fifth album, was written after a personal event that Isaak says "wasn't actually like a break up. It was like an explosion." For someone who seems to almost cultivate romantic depression, that must have been nothing short of inspirational, and on FOREVER BLUE he turns the resulting emotions (sadness, bitterness, loneliness) into a sustained thesis on the wicked game of love. The growling, swamp-blues opener "Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing" portrays true love as a knife, a thing that hurts more and more the deeper it goes. It begins with the question "You ever love someone so much you thought your little heart was gonna break in two?"
Isaak obviously has, and he seems to relish the inevitable hurt, as if the pain fuels his engine. With reverb-drenched guitars and trembling organs setting a plaintive mood that you might call high lonesome rockabilly, Isaak sings about it in low, sexy whispers and high, wailing cries, sometimes within the same line. "No reason left for living," he sighs in the young-Elvis-like title-ballad, and then he remembers one--"new tears to cry." In the disarmingly peppy "I Believe," he professes his belief in "lovers walking side by side" and "a beautiful day." But, of course, there's a punchline: "not for me/And not for you." That's because you walked into his world, and he's going to pull you under, too.
Live Recording
All songs written by Chris Isaak.
Personnel: Chris Isaak (vocals, guitar); Jimmy Pugh (Hammond B-3 organ); Rowland Salley (bass, vocals); Kenney Dale Johnson (drums, vocals); Gregg Arreguin, Frank Martin, Jason Morgan, David Grissom, Bruce Kaphan.
Q (6/95, p.123) - 3 Stars - Good - "...sticks to the tried and tested loveless formula as though doomed to be forever haunted by the ghosts of Roy Orbison and rock'n'roll past....No surprises, but no disappointment either."
Melody Maker (6/17/95, p.36) - "...What's different about FOREVER BLUE is that the arch, semi-ironic, coffee-table cool of, say, `Dancing' or `Wicked Game' has been abandoned for wracked, self-abasing misery, and sounds the better for it..."
Musician (7/95, p.109) - "...It's not just that his stylistic range has increased...but that he's added to the music's dynamic and emotional range. It's one thing to leap into falsetto, Roy Orbison-style...something else again to move from whispered hope to full-throated faith as easily as he does..."
NME (Magazine) (6/3/95, p.48) - 7 (out of 10) - "...when Isaak transcends his influences...it's impossible not to be seduced by that crushed velvet, Elvis Orbison voice. The hushed title track creeps into smoochy Chet Baker territory...like a timeless jazz-club standard..." Hide Description Forever Blue Music | List Price | $13.97 (You save $3.98) | | Category | Rock Albums, Pop CDs, Rock/Pop | | Label | Reprise | | Orig Year | 1995 | | All Time Sales Rank |  8339  | | CD Universe Part number | 1101442 | | Catalog number | 45845 | | Discs | 1 | | Release Date | May 23, 1995 | | Studio/Live | Studio | | Mono/Stereo | Stereo | | Producer | Erik Jacobsen | | Engineer | Mark Needham | | Recording Time | 40 minutes | | Personnel | David Grissom
Chris Isaak - vocals, guitar
Rowland Salley - bass, vocals
Kenny Dale Johnson - drums, vocals
Frank Martin
Jimmy Pugh - Hammond B-3 organ
Gregg Arreguin
Bruce Kaphan
Jason Morgan
Also: David Grisman, Mark Goldenberg, Stephen Bishop, Jeff Watson, Johnny Reno |
Chris Isaak Forever Blue Songs Forever Blue Music Review Purchase Forever Blue CD To buy, Click on price to add to cart | Chris Isaak Silvertone CD (1985)
Forever Blue album
 $10.05  
| | Chris Isaak Heart Shaped World CD (1989)
Forever Blue CD music
$8.49  
Chris Isaak's dark, sultry, reverb-drenched "Wicked Game" poured out of radios across the nation in 1990, pushing the sales of HEART SHAPED WORLD well past platinum. With its meandering melody, moody atmospherics, and Isaak's half-baritone, half-falsetto delivery, its popularity was no accident: the song is a piece of pop perfection. Isaak's aesthetic is heavily retro--he borrows from the high, poignant drama of Roy Orbison and Elvis Presley (and ...
| | Chris Isaak San Francisco Days CD (1993)
Forever Blue music CDs
$9.89
But none of this is to say Isaak is experimenting wildly. SAN FRANCISCO DAYS still channels Elvis Presley and Roy Orbison, updating the smoke-filled sound of twangy country ballads and laid-back, electric guitar-driven tunes from the '60s with pristine, high-end production. The combination is a winner, thanks in large part to Isaak's rich, knee-weakening croon, which is well showcased throughout. With its strong batch of songs, SAN FRANCISCO DAYS is in some ways an even better listen than HEART SHAPED WORLD.
On the follow-up to his breakthrough album HEART SHAPED WORLD, Chris Isaak continued with his dusky, Sun Records-influenced sound, while expanding his horizons just a bit. Despite the self-consciously retro album ...
| | Chris Isaak Baja Sessions CD (1996)
Forever Blue songs
$11.55 
For all its lonesome balladry, BAJA SESSIONS sounds positively exultant after 1995's morose FOREVER BLUE. The title refers to the pastoral Mexican peninsula that gave Isaak the inspiration for this set of lush, glistening ballads. Lap steel guitars glide through songs whose sunny climate belies Isaak's sad-sack lyrical bent. Isaak plays down his neo-rockabilly side in favor of the romantic crooning that's made him an international hearthrob.
Rather than writing an entire album's worth of songs to fit this mood, Isaak picked several cover tunes as well as a couple selections from his own back catalog, and interpreted them in a manner concordant with the lazy, summer-vacation-feel ...
| | Chris Isaak Speak Of The Devil CD (1998)
Forever Blue album
$9.59 
All tracks have been digitally mastered using HDCD technology.
Gorgeous and vibrant, SPEAK OF THE DEVIL boasts the strong crooning of Chris Isaak backed by the full-bodied, twanging guitar that's made his music such a distinctive pleasure since the mid-'80s. Isaak's focus on love and the different phases of relationships means that songs range from the built-up desperation in "Please" to the airy optimism of ...
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Forever Blue CD music
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Forever Blue music CDs
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Forever Blue songs
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Forever Blue album
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Forever Blue CD music
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Forever Blue music CDs
$15.95 
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Forever Blue album
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