Deep Album Cuts Vol. 354: Peter Frampton


 
























Peter Frampton is nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, alongside Mary J. BligeMariah Carey, Cher, Dave Matthews Band, Eric B. & Rakim, ForeignerJane's Addiction, Kool & The GangLenny KravitzOasis, Sinead O'Connor, Ozzy Osbourne, Sade, and A Tribe Called Quest.  

Peter Frampton album cuts (Spotify playlist):

1. All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)
2. Wind Of Change
3. Just The Time Of Year
4. White Sugar
5. Golden Goose
6. Sail Away
7. The Crying Clown
8. Nowhere's Too Far (For My Baby)
9. Day's Dawning
10. Doobie Wah (live)
11. I Wanna Go To The Sun (live)
12. Penny For Your Thoughts (live)
13. Lines On My Face (live)
14. (Putting Your) Heart On The Line
15. Rocky's Hot Club
16. Got My Feet Back On The Ground
17. Where I Should Be (Monkey's Song)

Tracks 1 and 2 from Wind Of Change (1972)
Tracks 3 and 4 from Frampton's Camel (1973)
Tracks 5 and 6 from Somethin's Happening (1974)
Tracks 7, 8 and 9 from Frampton (1975)
Tracks 10, 11, 12 and 13 from Frampton Comes Alive! (1976)
Tracks 14 and 15 from I'm In You (1977)
Tracks 16 and 17 from Where I Should Be (1979)

This year's Rock Hall nominees are heavier on radio-friendly crowd-pleasers who aren't necessarily considered critically acclaimed innovators and legends. Even in that field, though, Peter Frampton is probably the weakest case for induction. It's not entirely fair to call him a one album wonder -- Frampton Comes Alive! drew on the four studio albums he'd released at that point, plus a song from his days with Humble Pie. So it was the culminating moment of a career he'd been building for a decade (funnily enough, the best-selling Humble Pie album from Frampton's tenure with the group was also a live album, Rockin' The Fillmore). But other guys who broke through big with live albums, like Kiss or Bob Seger, kept making hits for a while after that, while Frampton never recaptured that lightning in a bottle. 

Before putting together this playlist, I only really knew Frampton Comes Alive! and not even the studio versions of those songs. I was pleasantly surprised that a couple songs are actually better in their original versions -- "All I Want To Be (Is By Your Side)" in particular is a much longer and fuller song on Wind Of Change than the short acoustic rendition on Alive. Generally, though, I have not really revised my opinion that Frampton is a minor talent who just had the stars align right for a year or two. And it seemed like he kind of gambled away his burgeoning rock god status with the goofy pin-up cover for the follow-up, I'm In You, which is his only platinum studio album. That record features a fun Stevie Wonder harmonica cameo "Rocky's Hot Club," and on "Heart On The Line," Frampton brings back the popular talkbox guitar sound from Alive
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