After Dark (studio album) by Andy Gibb

Don't laugh (although it's hard not to when you look at that cover). This is actually a pretty good album. Andy's best in fact. "Desire" is just a flat-out great BeeGees single and "Warm Ride", "Wherever You Are" and the title track all could have made fine hit singles. And unlike his first two albums, even some of the ballads have a rich, warm groove behind them. It would have been interesting to see what could come if Andy had developed this sound into the 80's.

Side A includes the amazing single, "Desire" (#4 Pop) along with the aforementioned highlights. These four tracks are actually not too dissimilar from I Want You/Here, My Dear-era Marvin Gaye. But then we get to the two weakest songs on the album, which happen to be the two duets with Olivia Newton-John. Nothing against Livvy, but these tracks just sound bland and milquetoast to me. That didn't stop them from becoming hits. As the second single, "I Can't Help It" made #12 Pop. And "Rest Your Love on Me" became a #1 Country hit when covered by Conway Twitty the following year.

The album concludes with 4 songs that all exhibit a smooth, mellow country-pop vibe. While not as striking as the songs on Side A, they are significantly better than what you would expect from an artist that was dismissed at the time as manufactured Teen Beat product. The final track, "Dreamin' On", is particularly noteworthy, and provides a fitting coda to an all-too-brief recording career (although technically, there would be three more new songs on Andy Gibb's Greatest Hits).