Some country and folk purists might not be able to get past the overlays of strings and assorted touches of pop production in the arrangements. For everyone else, though,
The Love Album is another solid entry in the series of late-'60s
Hartford RCA LPs, boasting some of the wryest and slyest country-pop ever written. "You hit me in the face in the middle of the night" he sings on the very first line of the very first track, though the backing music is his usual amiable country-pop/bluegrass, and that pretty much sets the tone for the record. For you can't really tell whether
Hartford, a master of understatement, is subverting both country and pop conventions with his laconic wit, penning lyrics that would have risked outright rejection by big label A&R departments had they not come from the hand of someone who'd established himself as a bankable property with "Gentle on My Mind." His droll delivery and toying with clichés makes it hard to tell whether he's the straight man or a joker, and it's that ambiguity that makes these oddball tunes so intriguing -- such pleasant, straight country-pop on the one hand, but such deviously subtle irony on the other. And the verging-on-MOR strings and speckles of keyboards, far from diluting the songs, make them yet more left-field. For all the pop trimmings, too, there are a lot of admirable straight bluegrass and folk chops mixed into the arrangements as well. "The Six O'Clock Train and a Girl With Green Eyes," "Why Do You Do Me Like You Do?," "I Would Not Be Here," "Natural to Be Gone," and the more serious "Landscape Grown Cold" are all highlights of his RCA period, and none of the rest of the songs are filler. (In 2002,
The Love Album and
Hartford's subsequent album,
Housing Project, were combined onto one CD by BMG/Camden in the U.K.)