Released August 1, 1973 Label Atlantic Release date 1 August 1973 | Length 40:57 Artist Roberta Flack Producer Joel Dorn | |
Killing Me Softly
(1973) Feel Like Makin' Love
(1975) Genres Soul music, Rhythm and blues, Pop music, Blues Nominations Grammy Award for Album of the Year Similar Roberta Flack albums, Soul music albums | ||
Roberta flack killing me softly lp record
Killing Me Softly is a studio album by American singer-songwriter Roberta Flack, released on August 1, 1973, by Atlantic Records. She recorded the album with producer Joel Dorn for 18 months.
Contents
- Roberta flack killing me softly lp record
- Killing me softly with his song roberta flack lyrics
- Critical reception
- Track listing
- Personnel
- Songs
- References
Killing Me Softly reached number three on the Billboard Top LPs & Tape and number two on the Soul LPs chart. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) certified the album gold on August 27, 1973, and double platinum on January 30, 2006, denoting shipments of two million copies in the United States. It was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year, which it lost to Stevie Wonder's 1973 album Innervisions. The album's title track was released as a single and topped the Billboard Hot 100. It won the 1974 Grammy Award for Record of the Year.
Killing me softly with his song roberta flack lyrics
Critical reception
In a contemporary review for the Chicago Tribune, Clarence Page said Killing Me Softly has a hit title track and "other potential hits, adding up to one of [Flack's] better albums". John S. Wilson, writing in The New York Times, felt that Flack and producer Joel Dorn "have resisted the pitfalls of overproducing that you would suppose such a long gestation period would induce". Billboard called the record a "delicate, introspective work" by Flack, whom the magazine deemed a "masterful interpreter of clean lyrics fusing a sophisticated pop sound with that dark side of the blues".
Robert Christgau was less impressed in Creem, giving Killing Me Softly a "C" while comparing Flack negatively to Jesse Colin Young because she also "always makes you wonder whether she's going to fall asleep before you do". In a retrospective review, The Rolling Stone Album Guide (1992) gave the record two-and-a-half out of five stars and found its music "inocuous". AllMusic's Ron Wynn gave it four and a half stars in his retrospective review, writing that the album "continued in the same tradition as Chapter Two and A Quiet Fire", featuring "simmering ballads, declarative message songs, and better-than-average up-tempo numbers".
Track listing
- "Killing Me Softly with His Song" (Charles Fox, Norman Gimbel) 4:49
- "Jesse" (Janis Ian) 4:03
- "No Tears (In the End)" (Ralph MacDonald, William Salter) 4:56
- "I'm the Girl" (James Alan Shelton) 4:55
- "River" (Gene McDaniels) 5:03
- "Conversation Love" (Terry Plumeri, Bill Seighman) 3:43
- "When You Smile" (Ralph MacDonald, William Salter) 3:44
- "Suzanne" (Leonard Cohen) 9:44
Personnel
Credits are adapted from AllMusic.
Songs
1Killing Me Softly With His Song4:48
2Jesse4:06
3No Tears (In the End)4:59