Word: albums
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Wonderfully under-orchestrated, "I Will Take You Home" is a sentimental song for voice and piano sung by Brent to his sleepy young daughter. Violins and music boxes provide the soothing musical texture which unites the piece and sets it apart from the rest of the album...
Overall, Built to Last is a very soft-spoken album. The tempered pace may disappoint fans who enjoyed the quick cadences and easy accessibility of In the Dark, but the soft, melodic nature and homogeneous texture of Built to Last lends the Dead's newest project strength as well as weaknesses. The album does hold up well after repeated listening, and while none of the tracks are particularly catchy, they are interesting enough to be fresh the second and third time around...
...will criticize Built to Last for its gloss and commercialism. The Dead have certainly discovered the benefits of modern marketing, packaging a deluxe picture disk CD edition of Built to Last with a set of Grateful Dead playing cards and providing order forms in the standard editions of the album so that fans can purchase Grateful Dead coffee mugs, t-shirts, and bumper stickers by mail...
Musically, while the lack of a stand-out single does make Built to Last appear less commercial than 1987's In the Dark, the album does retain the dominant vocals and background instrumentation that have defined the Dead of the 1980s and set them apart from their psychedelic past. Bob Weir's "Victim or the Crime" is the exception which proves the rule on the Dead's newest release--this seven-minute, 33-second composition quickly devolves into a reflection back on some of the Dead's early tonal experimentation and instrumental jam sessions...
...Built to Last does show that after 25 years, the Grateful Dead can continue to produce interesting if not particularly inventive music. Built to Last is a pleasant, relaxed album that takes few risks and provides few surprises. Above all else though, Built to Last proves that the Dead can continue to grow musically while maintaining a strong link to their past. And with a past as long and varied as the Dead's, that's no small accomplishment...