This Is . . . Del Shannon [Music Club, 1997]
The first artist ever to chart Stateside with a Lennon-McCartney song, Shannon is suspended forever in that boy-becomes-man moment when teen-romance tropes unload their frightening burden of existential anxiety. He achieves release with his sole trick, in which minor-key verse gives way to major-key refrain topped by a brief escape into a falsetto that never hints at the feminine. This pop-rock apotheosis he achieved precisely 11 times, which here takes us from "Runaway" to "Stranger in Town." All are also on Rhino's slightly pricier 20-song comp. But where the Rhino filler is all carbon-copy follow-ups and failed experiments, the five bonuses here vary the formula without abandoning it, most memorably on--note title--"I Wish I Wasn't Me Tonight." Despite Nashville forays and a mysteriously forgotten 1968 concept album called The Further Adventures of Charles Westover, he never matured. When he shot himself in 1990 at 55, he was still claiming five years less, just as he had 30 years before. He left no note. Did he have to? A-

>>126742647 (OP)
But I hate "Runaway", that sound is annoying, bro.

>>126742647 (OP)
>Despite Nashville forays and a mysteriously forgotten 1968 concept album called The Further Adventures of Charles Westover
Like the Everlys' contemporaneous roots rock album, a neat record but both Del and the Everlys had lost their radio support by 1968 so nobody noticed their albums and back then radio support was critical to "making it."

>>126742662
Shit taste "bro"

he had that early 80s comeback hit produced by Bruce Springsteen because he was Springsteen's childhood hero

yeah he fudged his real age and claimed to be born in 1939, all the way up until his death like Cuckgau points out. oh well, lots of singers did that back then. Doris Day shaved 2 years off her real age and the truth wasn't clarified until a few years before her death.

>Del Shannon
I get this guy and Dion mixed up all the time
also, fuck cuckgau