You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic

Ian Hunter - "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" (1979) - Chrysalis

Hello friends,

Tonight on "Vinyl in the Valley" we're listening to what is arguably Ian Hunter's best record since his days with Mott the Hoople!  

Featuring members of the E Street Band as back-up musicians and Bowie's ex-guitarist, Mick Ronson, producing, "You're Never Alone with a Schizophrenic" is a great example of what happened to "glam rock" by the late 70's.  Its good, with some really solid rocking songs, but its polished-sounding and not sleazy or sexy enough.  Its glam without the gay... and who wants that?

(Even Barry Manilow had a top 10 hit with a saccharine cover of the song, "Ships", from this album!)

The best song on this LP, by far, is the epic, "Cleveland Rocks".  This song is great for two reasons, (a) it was the theme song to "The Drew Carey Show" and (b) Cleveland does rock!    

The songs are all pretty good, but every time I hear Hunter's voice, I sort of wish I was listening to "All the Young Dudes"...

RATING: 3.5 Alan Freeds out of 5