''Born Again'' is the sixth studio album by American musician Randy Newman. The album was released on August 18, 1979, to little sales and relatively poor reviews, which surprised Newman. Newman went on to say that ''Born Again'' was the strangest album that he had ever done. The album cover features Randy Newman in a business office, wearing face makeup (an obvious parody of

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), with dollar signs painted over his eyes, appearing to poke fun at the commercialization of rock music.

Release

Newman expected the album to be a hit. Instead, the album sold relatively poorly, with worse reviews than its predecessor. Stephen Holden, writing for ''

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'', criticized the album for its "snide" and "nihilistic" tone. Newman called it "a larger insult," and reflected, "The mistake I made was that to do this, people have to know who you are in the first place." "It's a weird album full of peculiar songs like the one about an ELO fan getting everything wrong. It's very idiosyncratic, with small subjects. If it had been a hit to follow it might have been different but I have always written the same way." Ironically,

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would later be among the producers of '' Land of Dreams''.

Track listing

All tracks written and arranged by Randy Newman. # "It's Money That I Love" – 3:38 # "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band" – 2:53 # "Pretty Boy" – 4:00 # "Mr. Sheep" – 3:53 # "Ghosts" – 2:28 # "They Just Got Married" – 2:51 # "Spies" – 3:55 # "The Girls in My Life (Part One)" – 2:36 # "Half a Man" – 3:38 # "William Brown" – 1:50 # "Pants" – 3:06

Charts

Personnel

* Randy Newman – vocals, piano, Fender Rhodes *

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– guitar * Chuck Findley, Tom Scott – horns *

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– piano, Fender Rhodes, drums, percussion *

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– synthesizer * David Shields,

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– bass guitar * Andy Newmark – drums * Lenny Castro,

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– percussion * Stephen Bishop – background vocals *

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– background vocals * Arno Lucas – background vocals ;Technical *Tom Knox – engineer *Lee Herschberg – mixing *Mike Salisbury – art direction, cover design *Mark Feldman – cover photography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Born Again (Randy Newman Album) 1979 albums Randy Newman albums Albums produced by Lenny Waronker Albums produced by Russ Titelman Warner Records albums Avant-pop albums Albums arranged by Randy Newman Albums conducted by Randy Newman