Frank Stallone: that time he almost became a rock …
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There is really no way to redeem this record. There is no parallel universe where Frank Stallone is cool, and you’re even cooler for digging his sweet AOR pop jams. There just isn’t.
The fact of the matter is, he’s Sylvester Stallone’s brother. Sly. Rocky. Rambo. Would Frank ever have had a record contract without the looming cultural influence of his older brother? Probably not.
Before fame and fortune shone on the Stallone family, Frank’s biggest inroads to the music industry were busking on street corners and warbling through weeknight gigs at folk clubs in New Jersey. But in 1975, his older bro landed Rocky, and gave Frank a soundtrack credit. And he kept doing it, until eventually, Frank scored a soundtrack hit. It was 1983, the song was called Far From Over, and the movie was Stayin’ Alive, the leotard-laced follow-up to Saturday Night Fever.
You don’t remember the song or the movie, and that’s okay; neither was meant to be remembered. But they did exist, and the temptation to build another star out of another Stallone was just too great. And so, 1984’s Frank Stallone.
Celebrities don’t really make albums anymore, but they used to, quite a bit. Don Johnson had one, John Travolta had a few, Bruce Willis, David Hasselhoff, a couple of Charlie’s Angels… the list goes on. And it wasn’t even that weird for the siblings of celebrities to take a run at it – two of Dolly Parton’s sisters launched their own musical careers in her shadow, one of ’em as a phony punk rocker. So it was in the ether.
Naturally, Frank took great pains to try to shirk off his coat-tail rider image, insisting he was a contemporary of his big brother, not a mooch. And to his credit, Sly always said Frank was the first artist in his family, and an inspiration to the once-fledgling actor. So we should probably approach Frank Stallone without wagging our damning fingers and crying nepotism. I mean, it is nepotism, 100 per cent, no doubt in the world, but at this point, what’s the difference? Let’s just let Frank be Frank, and see what happens.
Well, we do have to address one issue first. As mentioned, Frank’s big break was via a song on the Rocky soundtrack. The song was called Take You Back, by his phony disco/AOR band Valentine. Fact is, it’s a jammer. Cornball and overwrought, sure. But it gets the job done with swelling verses and a punchy chorus. It sounds like what it is – blown-out soundtrack music. Frank never forgot the lesson he learned with that song. Every song he did for the next decade was like Take You Back.
Every Stallone number is an AOR throatpunch with a credit roll. Just a cursory listen to any 80s Frank Stallone tune will leave you with sticky shoes and popcorn kernels jammed in your gums. Frank Stallone is no Brian Eno, man. He doesn’t experiment. Like his big brother, he just fuckin’ delivers the killing blow.
And that’s how Frank Stallone goes down. Guns blaze on the opener, Runnin’. Every track on the first Bon Jovi record sounded just like this. Like every song in 1984, it’s a self-empowerment anthem. Gotta keep runnin’ to get where you’re goin’, you know the drill. Fists will be pumped. But Frank is not just an uptempo guy. He likes rocking a ballad, too. And good lord, does he wring every soppy cliché imaginable out of them.
It’s important to remember that Frank was once a folk singer. That’s probably why a lot of this album sounds so much like the sinister work of Kenny Loggins. You can hear the acoustic origins in syrupy maudlin mush like Music Is Magic and Love Is Like A Light (ugh, really?), it’s just all over-produced into infinity with goopy synths, bleating sax and choppy guitars. Darlin’ livens the proceedings with a dash of Hall & Oates-y blue-eyed soul and the always-welcome thwack of cowbells. If We Ever Get Back is more slow-rolling soundtrack disco. Every 80s movie has make-out scenes, right?
Side two opens with Far From Over, the song you forgot from the movie you forgot from the year before. It’s his first record, you don’t even know Frank Stallone yet, and he’s already playing the beleaguered underdog. Originally, the song was written about a dance contest or some bullshit, but here, stripped of its cinematic origins, it sounds like Frank is directly addressing the critics whom he rightly assumes are writing him off as the fame-hungry sibling of a celeb. “I thought I was in,” he bellows over piping keyboards and chugging hard rock guitars, “but you put me down and say I’m goin’ nowhere.” Well, motherfucker, Frank has news for you: “I am down, but I am far from over!”
You can hear why this was a hit: it’s all hooks and soaring choruses and positive energy. But you can also hear why it was forgotten so quickly. Even by 1984, it sounds dated. It makes you feel like you’re walking around in an early-80s shopping mall in your nylon parachute pants, your hot-yellow Walkman throbbing along to Frank’s goofy workout music. But as the song says, we are Far From Over. You still get more yacht rock balladry, another you-can-do-it AOR victory lap, and a (ahem) frankly jaw-dropping piano/soprano party-ender, Fly Together, which even Air Supply would dismiss for being too cloying.
Despite his proclamations that he was Far From Over, Frank Stallone sorta was. Maybe it was Fly Together’s fault, but he didn’t make another record until his Sinatra-spiced 1991 crooner comeback, Day In Day Out. Despite his album’s floppery, Frank’s sound, essentially, was co-opted by Survivor’s Eye Of The Tiger on his big bro’s Rocky III soundtrack.
There’s a metaphor in there somewhere about all of this, about big breaks and comebacks and blowing the big fight. But the fact is, Frank Stallone is just not the knockout you’d hope it would be. It does, at least, deliver a couple of good slugs to the skull. And if you ever forget what 1984 sounded like, well, it sounded like Frank Stallone. And it still does.
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