This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.
Harbor Lights was the fourth album by Bruce Hornsby and was released by RCA Records in 1993. It was the first album credited solely to Hornsby, without his previous backing band, the Range. The record showcased Hornsby in a more jazz-oriented setting and featured an all-star lineup, including Pat Metheny, Branford Marsalis, Jerry Garcia, Phil Collins and Bonnie Raitt. Unlike earlier albums, Harbor Lights allowed more space for Hornsby's and guest-players' "extended instrumental" solos to "flow naturally" out of the songs. The tone was set by the opening title track, which after 50 seconds of expansive solo piano lurches into an up-tempo jazz number, ending with Metheny's guitar runs. The album closes in a similar fashion with "Pastures of Plenty", this time with an extended guitar solo from Garcia intertwined with Hornsby's piano. Hornsby also quotes the main musical phrase from the Grateful Dead's "Dark Star" as the jazz head to his song about tensions surrounding a biracial relationship, "Talk of the Town". The mid-tempo "Fields of Gray", written for Hornsby's recently born twin sons, received some modest radio airplay, peaking at #69 on the Billboard Hot 100. Harbor Lights was well received by critics and fans, who praised it for its "cooler, jazzier sound" and its "affinity for sincere portraits of American life, love, and heartache." The album cover uses Edward Hopper's 1951 painting Rooms By the Sea.
The only remarkable part of this album is the cover by Edward Hopper. The music and performance on this jazzy pop rock album is harmless in every way. Quality elevator music I guess.
This is really cheesy soft rock from the 90s. It's just so... lame? Like it's just so bland and inoffensive and sounds like the credits over some generic 90s film. Compared with the jazz album yesterday this is childsplay. It really sounds like the default sounds you get on your casio. My personal rating: 2/5 My rating relative to the list: 2.5/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.
Maybe didn’t give this enough time, but just comes across as cheesy soft rock, not for me.
Never heard of this before but it was surprisingly cool. A bit jazzy at times, but nothing obnoxious. Good soft rock album. 4/5.
Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Passing through, What a time
A warm blanket of music. Enjoyed it more than expected
It's alright, but sort of bland. 3 stars.
This was a quite fun soft rock album but I didn’t get too much out of it. Catchy hooks but very dated production, even for the 90s when it came out. Kind of like Billy Joel with more of a groovy jazz/funk influence
Fine piano rock
Absolute shoutout to the legend who found this album of the music they played at KMarts
Not bad
I thought this was all right - very well executed for what it is, though the smooth jazz thing isn't so much for me. But it made for perfectly enjoyable backing music for a morning of chores.
Rock, jazz, soft rock. Ni fu ni fa.
Love the Hopper-esque (or Hopper-excerpted) cover. Love the warmth and soft perceptibility of the music, but it’s so down the middle as to be a veritable snooze. Piano playing is fine throughout, lovely and grand, alternately. Vocals are sub-par. Reminds one of the early Sting records (which are on balance a notch better), “Fields of Gold” = “Pastures of Plenty,” basically. “Talk of the Town” sounds like the Charlie Rose soundtrack; much else like brief excerpts of Dead shows. Can’t speak to where this fits with Hornsby’s evolution as an artist, but it would seem less a major new territorial expansion than an incremental maturation.
Discount store Genesis, tries so hard to invoke the progressive rock titans of its time that it loses any sense of individuality in the process. Silly lyricism and muzak-level instrumentals further hinder the LP, and it ends up going in one ear and out the other – listened to this in the morning and it was gone from memory by lunch.