Barry Manilow - If I Should Love Again (1981)

Artist:   Barry Manilow
Title:  If I Should Love Again
Release:  1981
Format:  LP
Label:  Arista Records
Catalog#  204050

“If I Should Love Again” is the eighth studio album released by singer and songwriter Barry Manilow. The album was recorded at United Western Recording Studios in Los Angeles, California. Barry refers to it as “The most romantic album that I ever made”, and remarks “I was so caught up in romance that I actually wrote music and lyrics to the title song while playing the piano facing the ocean, in a rented house on the beach in Atlantic City, New Jersey.” The album was released in 1981.
“If I Should Love Again” is classic Barry Manilow and yielded three Top 40 hits, “The Old Songs, “Somewhere Down the Road,” and the bright “Let’s Hang On.
 Though those singles aren’t often considered classics in his oeuvre, they and most of this album are shamelessly well-crafted adult contemporary, “Break Down the Door” and “I Haven’t Changed the Room” being inoffensive exceptions. “No Other Love” is a swoony, romantic ballad (with strong lyrics like “There were no violins, there were no soft guitars, time comes and goes like music in a play”) that plays out exactly as it should, so that you can’t imagine there being another way to produce it. Turning “Somewhere Down the Road” from a melancholy piano ballad to an anthem shows that Manilow’s in fine form. The song becomes so inspirational you almost want to salute the flag.


Side one
1.  The Old Songs  (4:43)
2.  Let’s Hang On  (3:12)
3.  If I Should Love Again  (5:33)
4.  Don’t Fall in Love with Me  (3:39)
5.  Break Down the Door  (3:04)

Side two
1.  Somewhere Down the Road  (4:00)
2.  No Other Love  (4:36)
3.  Fools Get Lucky  (4:11)
4.  I Haven’t Changed the Room  (2:16)
5.  Let’s Take All Night (to Say Goodbye)  (3:36)

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