The Candidate (album)

Background

Having spent almost a year living in Los Angeles, during which time his debut solo album Hobo with a Grin was released, Harley returned to London at the end of 1978. In mid-November 1978, various UK music magazines reported that after returning to England at Christmas, Harley would form a new band, record a new album in February and plan a world tour for later in the year. Speaking to the Daily Star in December 1978, Harley described Hobo with a Grin as "an experience", adding: "But this time I'll do things very differently. I'll get the band together, then record the album in a fortnight - the way I always used to."

The Candidate took three weeks to write, while recording took place during February at Abbey Road Studios. The entire album was also mixed and mastered at Abbey Road Studios, except mixing for "Freedom's Prisoner", which took place at Morgan Studios. Afterwards, Harley began planning a British and European tour for later in the year. When talking of forming a new Cockney Rebel line-up, Harley commented to Daily Mirror's Pauline McLeod: "There will undoubtedly be some of the old group members of the group in the line-up. Maybe Jim Cregan could join up for it if he's not busy recording with Rod Stewart."

Speaking to Maggi Russell in early 1979, Harley revealed of the new album:

"I needed the energy that London has. West Coast musicians have done it all before, and they're very blase. Here people put their heart and soul into their music. Stuart Elliott and Jo Partridge from Cockney Rebel worked on the album with me. It's very important when you're spending 12 hours a day in the studio with a bunch of people that you get on well, that you share a sense of humour. Otherwise you all end up having a bad time. "Hobo with a Grin" was a difficult album, and hard to market. My new album leans back more to the early Cockney Rebel sound, a similar tempo, more commercial perhaps. I have made a record that I believe in. If the music press review it maturely I'll be glad, but that is doubtful. I'm really hoping for a good 1979, and I'm putting everything I've got into it. I'm back, and they are all going to know I am. You could spend a lot of time in this business getting affluent with success, but I'm more interested in my own sense of achievement. I hope my fans like it too."

In an interview with The Evening News in October, Harley spoke of his return from America and the album's creation:

"I spent almost a full year out there and did nothing except swim and sunbathe and head for some party or other at night. I had a rented house in Beverley Hills – it was costing me about £300 a week and all I did was lie by the pool and have friends to stay at the guest house. I then realised that I was getting nowhere fast and booked London's Abbey Road studios for two months. I called my old Cockney Rebel drummer Stuart Elliott and asked him to put me a band together. I came back to London, and within about three weeks I had more than enough songs for an LP. I'm pleased with "The Candidate" – it's the best album I've done in ages."

In May 1979, Harley appeared with Peter Gabriel at one of Kate Bush's Hammersmith Odeon concerts in May 1979. It was Harley's first performance on stage in two years. Later in August, New Musical Express magazine announced that Harley was currently bringing a touring band together and was in the middle of planning a British tour to follow the release of his new album.

In September, EMI released The Candidate, along with the single "Freedom's Prisoner". Despite predictions, The Candidate was a commercial failure, although "Freedom's Prisoner" did reach #58 in the UK Top 75 during October. By this time, plans for a British tour failed to materialised. Instead, Harley performed a one-off, sold-out show at the Hammersmith Odeon in London in October, with a new line-up of Cockney Rebel as his backing band.

Comparing The Candidate with Hobo with a Grin, Harley commented in his interview with The Evening News:

"I looked at that LP the other day – looking is enough. I can't bear to listen to it. It's the worst thing I've ever done. I'm getting the old Cockney Rebel band together for a concert in London at the end of this month. And there won't be one song from the "Hobo with a Grin" LP in the set. But "The Candidate" is a different story altogether. After hours of deliberation, I've left out two songs from it and I hated doing that. There isn't a bad song on it."

Following the disappointing sales of The Candidate, EMI dropped Harley from their label. The album was Harley's last studio album until the release of 1992's Yes You Can.

Release

The album was released on vinyl by EMI Records in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Portugal. The album's sleeve featured photography by Mick Rock. The photographs displayed on the back side of the sleeve were taken showing Harley and co. during the recording sessions of the album.

Later in 2000, the album received its first CD release through EMI and Harley's own Comeuppance Discs label. It contained two bonus tracks; the 1982 non-album single "I Can't Even Touch You" and a live version of the 1974 Cockney Rebel song "Psychomodo". On 6 October 2003, Voiceprint released the album on CD as a part of their "2 for One Series" along with Harley's 1992 album Yes You Can. On 31 October 2011, The Candidate was digitally remastered and released on CD by BGO Records as a double album set with Hobo with a Grin.

Promotion

In the 20 October 1979 issue of Melody Maker, a full-page, black-and-white advert was published to promote the album's release, as well as the "Freedom's Prisoner" single. A music video was also filmed to promote the single.

Critical reception

In the September 2000 issue of Q magazine, a review of the album's first CD issue commented: "Despite Harley returning to Blighty, the splendid "The Candidate" sold so poorly that EMI dumped what four years previously had been their major act. "Freedom's Prisoner" deserved to be an enormous hit, "Woodchopper" rhymes 'editorial' with 'accusatorial', and the soul-baring "One More Time" ruminates lasciviously on being taken from behind the leopardesses. Time surely for a little readjustment of history."

Dave Thompson of AllMusic retrospectively reviewed the album, writing "When Steve Harley's "Freedom's Prisoner" single hit the airwaves in fall 1979, it would have taken a lot to convince the longtime fan that the man hadn't resparked all his old glories again, and was about to embark upon a musical journey as scintillating, and as fascinating, as that which launched him in the first place. A tidal wave of intriguing lyrics, a captivating chorus and a dynamic that was pure "Psychomodo", it was Harley's finest 45 in half a decade. It was also a total fluke, as the accompanying album flopped onto the streets and proved itself (as too many times before) to be little more than a clutch of substandard songs, glued together by alluring production alone. "Audience with the Man" and "From Here to Eternity" do bear repeated listens, but too much of "Candidate" clung so lifelessly to the stylus that it was hard to believe our hopes had ever soared so high."

In the Record Collector magazine, Terry Staunton reviewed the BGO double CD release of the album along with Hobo with a Grin. He wrote: "Harley's opening brace of releases not to feature the Cockney Rebel name on their sleeves – not even as increasingly junior partners in his endeavours – took him ever further away from the glam/art rock of his chart past. As road maps to what he had in mind for the next stage of his career, they’re both a tad confused, arrows scrawled all over them in numerous directions. "Hobo with a Grin", from 1978, takes stabs at anything and everything. The following 1979 year's offering draws from just as big a notice board, but the musical thumbtacks are rarely strong enough to hold the ideas in place. "Audience with the Man" and "From Here to Eternity" suggest a love for early Springsteen, but with little of Bruce's energy or articulacy, "How Good It Feels" is passable Brit country, while "Freedom's Prisoners" sounds like synth-rock played by jet-lagged Cossacks."

Personnel