Tao (album)

Tao
Studio album by Rick Springfield
Released March 27, 1985
Genre Pop rock
Length 41 minutes
Label RCA
Producer Rick Springfield, Bill Drescher
Rick Springfield chronology

Hard to Hold
(1984)		 Tao
(1985)		 Rock of Life
(1988)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Tao is an album by pop singer Rick Springfield. It was released in 1985 on RCA Records. It was released on CD in 1990.

Track listing

All songs written by Rick Springfield, except where noted.

  1. "Dance This World Away"
  2. "Celebrate Youth"
  3. "State of the Heart" (Eric McCusker, Tim Pierce, Rick Springfield)
  4. "Written in Rock"
  5. "The Power of Love"
  6. "Walking on the Edge"
  7. "Walk Like a Man"
  8. "The Tao of Heaven"
  9. "Stranger in the House"
  10. "My Father's Chair"

Production

With Tao, Springfield decided to experiment with new wave and synthrock. Springfield noted in a 2012 interview, "Tao had a lot of European influences and I perhaps went a little bit too far in that direction, but he yet had some great songs. The production was more European orientated, with the massive synths and that stuff actually did it really well in Europe, especially in Germany, 'Celebrate Youth' was a hit." Springfield considers Tao to be his finest album to date. "We just had a lot of new ideas. It is probably the one I experimented on the most. Whatever I thought of we tried it. It was just when sampling was just starting, we got really into the drum sampling. But we started on just a DMX. A little DMX drum machine, all the original drum tracks were laid down on that, and then we triggered other drum samples from that. It was built up track by track. That is still my favorite album."

Critical reception

Tao was dismissed by Rolling Stone’s Wild as "an overwrought, misguided bid for respectability." Voicing similar concerns, Stereo Review contributor Steve Simeis explained what he viewed as "production overkill" by suggesting that Springfield may have had "lingering suspicions that he’s a pretty face rather than a musician." Still, Simel did note that "when he’s dealing with relationships, Springfield is capable of writing with a fair amount of verbal facility and genuine feeling."

Credits

Charts

External links

  1. ↑ Allmusic review