The Tears of Hercules Rod Stewart Artist

{|The Tears of Hercules|} continues the late-career renaissance of {|Rod Stewart|} the singer/songwriter, marking the fourth consecutive album he's largely written either on his own or in collaboration with his producer {|Kevin Savigar|}. {|Time|}, t... Read more

{|The Tears of Hercules|} continues the late-career renaissance of {|Rod Stewart|} the singer/songwriter, marking the fourth consecutive album he's largely written either on his own or in collaboration with his producer {|Kevin Savigar|}. {|Time|}, the first of these, arrived in 2013 when {|Stewart|} was fresh from penning his 2012 memoir Rod: The Autobiography, so it carried a measure of introspection. {|The Tears of Hercules|} came out in 2021, nearly a decade removed from the publication of his autobiography, and {|Stewart|} is in a decidedly looser frame of mind. While there are quieter moments here, such as a tribute to his late father on Touchline, they're overshadowed by the return of Randy Rod. He opens the album asking a lover for One More Time before they break up, reasoning that the sex was immense, he eulogizes {|Marc Bolan|} as a pioneer of boogie and sensuality, then he refashions {|George Michael|}'s I Want Your Sex into a carnal celebration on Kookooaramabama, a song that's as absurd as its title. All this untrammeled horniness is wrapped up in a gleaming digital bow by {|Savigar|}, who emphasizes modern R&B rhythms and gilded surfaces. When things get a little slower and sweeter, as they do on the title track, the productions don't seem quite so desperately imposing, yet there's a certain tacky appeal to these garish, overblown feints at contemporary pop. The settings are modern, but {|Stewart|}'s ribald charm is old-fashioned, often ingratiatingly so. Sure, Kookooaramabama is silly, but {|Rod|}'s embrace of sexual pleasure is as sincere as his denunciation of bigots, racists, and those that divide on Hold On, an earnest ballad in the vein of {|Sam Cooke|}'s A Change Is Gonna Come. The sacred has always sat comfortably with the profane in {|Rod Stewart|}'s art, and he's holding true to that on {|The Tears of Hercules|}, an album that's alternately baffling, absurd, sweet, and endearing. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Less