Eric Carmen's second self-titled album (his first came in 1975 ) sinks deep into the love-song quagmire without any attempts at freeing itself. Scoring a Top 40 hit with the sultry, bedroom essence of "I Wanna Hear It From Your Lips," Carmen took his lush romanticism to extremes, combing each track with gentle, tender lyrics that equal that of what Air Supply or Bread hold in their repertoire. Songs like "She Remembered" and "Come Back to My Love" are average relationship-gone-awry type of ballads best saved for a rainy night, while "American as Apple Pie" resuscitates the album for a brief moment with its sweetened rock charm. Although it was his first album after signing with Geffen, it only went as high as number 128 on the charts, with the second single, "I'm Through With Love," peaking at number 87. Three years after Eric Carmen was released, he showed that could bustle things up a bit with "Hungry Eyes" from the Dirty Dancing soundtrack, the song that gave him his first Top Ten single of the decade. ~ Mike DeGagne