Released November 17, 2003 Label Blue Note I Can't Stop
(2003) Everything's OK
(2005) Release date 17 November 2003 | Length 53:11 Your Heart's in Good Hands
(1995) I Can't Stop
(2003) Artist Al Green Producer Willie Mitchell | |
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Recorded March - April 2003 at Royal Studios, Memphis, Tennessee Genres Soul music, Rhythm and blues Nominations Grammy Award for Best R&B Album Similar Everything's OK, Back Up Train, Lay It Down, He Is the Light, Truth n' Time | ||
I Can't Stop is the 27th studio album by American soul singer Al Green, released in 2003. It was produced by Willie Mitchell. It was released by Blue Note Records on November 17, 2003, in the United Kingdom and on November 18 in the United States. The album was Green's first since 1995, his first for Blue Note, and his first collaboration with Mitchell since 1985's He Is the Light; it was also Green's first entirely secular recording since the 1970s.
Contents
The reunion between Green and Mitchell was highly anticipated, and I Can't Stop was a commercial success, peaking at number 53 on the Billboard 200 and number 9 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums charts. It was Green's highest placing on both charts since his 1975 album Al Green Is Love.
Critical reception
I Can't Stop received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, it received an average score of 75 out of 100, based on 18 reviews. Mojo opined "(Green) is, if anything, singing better than ever". In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis stated "The songwriting is largely superb, which keeps the album from sounding like a clever pastiche". Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, said that the album is not a sophisticated modernization or comeback to "a form he never lost", but instead shows that Green has "retained plenty of voice and the guile to know what to do with it." In a mixed review, Tom Smucker of The Village Voice felt that Green gets "tied down when production's slathered on a bit too thick". Blender magazine dismissed it as "a weak echo of those gloriously clean and spacious [1970s] LPs".
In a retrospective review for the magazine, Christgau gave the album four stars and called it Green's "finest late pop album". He felt that, although Green "can no longer shade with sprightly delicacy," his singing is louder and strengthened by "two decades in the pulpit at his own Memphis church."
Track listing
- "I Can't Stop" - 3:48
- "Play to Win" - 4:38
- "Rainin' in My Heart" - 4:45
- "I've Been Waitin' on You" (Green) - 3:43
- "You" - 4:29
- "Not Tonight" - 4:25
- "Million to One" - 4:52
- "My Problem Is You" - 6:28
- "I'd Still Choose You" - 4:05
- "I've Been Thinkin' 'Bout You" (Green) - 4:04
- "I'd Write a Letter" (Green) - 3:53
- "Too Many" (Green) - 4:01
Singles
Personnel
Songs
1I Can't Stop3:48
2Play to Win4:38
3Rainin' in My Heart4:45