Samiksha Jaiswal (Editor)

Take What You Find

Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share on FacebookTweet on TwitterShare on LinkedInShare on Reddit
Released
  
1980

Take What You Find (1980)
  
Play Me Out (1981)

Release date
  
1980

Label
  
Capitol Records

Length
  
31:07

Artist
  
Helen Reddy

Producer
  
Ron Haffkine

Genre
  
Pop rock

Take What You Find httpsuploadwikimediaorgwikipediaenthumb9

Recorded
  
1980 at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio Sheffield, Alabama, Sound Labs Nashville, Tennessee

Similar
  
Play Me Out, Feel So Young, Long Hard Climb, Free and Easy, Ear Candy

helen reddy take what you find 1980 take what you find


Take What You Find is an album by Australian-American pop singer Helen Reddy that was released in 1980 by Capitol Records and became her last project for the label. Like the previous three -- We'll Sing in the Sunshine, Live In London, and Reddy -- it failed to sell enough copies to reach Billboard magazine's list of the 200 Top LP's & Tapes of the week in the US but also became her first studio LP that didn't have a single appearing on either the Billboard Hot 100 or the magazine's Easy Listening chart.

Contents

helen reddy killer barracuda 1980 take what you find


Single

The album version of the title song was released in the 7-inch format, and an extended version, which had a running time of 5:01, was printed as a 12-inch single. In his review of Reddy's 1983 album Imagination, Allmusic's Joe Viglione wrote, "It is interesting how the pop divas of the '70s and '80s took some risks." Olivia Newton-John's 1981 hit song "Physical" was banned by a few conservative radio stations at the time because of the sexually suggestive lyrics, but the view of casual sex that Reddy had already sung about the previous year in "Take What You Find" goes so far as to recommend taking any sexual encounter available, even if it means lowering one's standards:

Instant love keeps it light Just enough to fill the night High ideals left behind Looking for love but you take what you find

Reception

Charles Donovan's review on Allmusic described the new tack Reddy was taking: "In search of a harder rock edge, Reddy employed Dr. Hook producer Ron Haffkine for Take What You Find, but despite tougher material like 'Killer Barracuda,' this was essentially another MOR-focused collection. Whatever artistic development there might have been failed to reverse Reddy's commercial decline." The reviewer for Billboard magazine also noted the different feel of this project. "The sound is funkier and harder-edged than we've come to expect from Reddy, as she tackles such tough topic matter as 'Killer Barracuda'," in which she describes a rather vicious love-'em-and-leave-'em type.

Track listing

Side 1

  1. "Take What You Find" (Julie Didier, Casey Kelly) – 3:06
  2. "Killer Barracuda" (Kris Kristofferson) – 3:08
  3. "A Way with the Ladies" (Dennis Locorriere, Ray Sawyer) – 2:48
  4. "Love's Not the Question" (Hazel Smith) – 3:34
  5. "Last of the Lovers" (Robert Byrne) – 3:10

Side 2

  1. "The One I Sing My Love Songs To" (Wayland Holyfield) – 3:10
  2. "Wizard in the Wind" (Andrew Paul) – 3:14
  3. "All I Really Need Is You" (Shel Silverstein) – 2:08
  4. "Midnight Sunshine" (Shel Silverstein) – 3:08
  5. "That Plane" (Dennis Locorriere, Ray Sawyer, Shel Silverstein) – 3:41

Personnel

  • recorded at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, Sheffield, AL, and Sound Lab, Nashville, TN
  • Songs

    1Take What You Find3:08
    2Killer Barracuda3:09
    3A Way With Ladies

    References

    Take What You Find Wikipedia