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List Price: $17.98 | | Label: Equity Music Group
Salesrank: 107641
Released: March 2, 2004 |
| Our Price: $2.18 |
| Used Price: $0.18 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Spend My Time Track Listing:
1. Spend My Time
2. We All Fall Down
3. My Imagination
4. She's Leavin'
5. Everything I Need
6. What Ever Happened
7. Mind To
8. Just Like You and Me
9. Boogie Man
10. Someone Else's Tears
11. Haywire
12. Lover's Clown
Editorial Review:
Limited edition, first 700 copies are signed by the artist.
Description of Spend My Time:
Though his masterful 1989 debut, Killin' Time, had once placed him neck and neck with Garth Brooks in the running for Nashville's most important New Traditionalist, Clint Black never made music that sounded as muscular or inspired. At times--his 1990 follow-up, Put Yourself in My Shoes, for instance--you could hear his wheels turn, as if he were trying too hard to do something that once came easy. However, on Spend My Time, his first album in nearly four years and the debut release for Equity (where Black is a partner), the stylish Texan takes full responsibility for everything--writing every tune, producing the disc, and letting his musicians stretch out in free-range solos. On the whole, he's more reflective than usual, taking stock of the fact that he's no longer a young gunslinger ("Spend My Time") and admitting that he's still smarting about his tumble from grace ("We All Fall Down"). Black still occasionally comes up with a bumbling, empty lyric ("All I need is everything I want"), something that has long marred his work. But he also conjures some of the most beautiful and wistful love songs of his career. If his days as a Number One hit maker are over, in the soaring ballads "My Imagination" and "Just Like You and Me" he proves he's only now really exploring his limits as an artist. --Alanna Nash
Spend My Time Reviews:
Shouldn't Clint Black "Spend [more of his] Time" in Iraq? 
2005-09-09 - I have heard and enjoyed quite a bit of this CD, but cannot bring myself to buy it--even used--or any more of this singer's releases, given that Clint Black is scheduled to perform at the so-called "Freedom Walk" at the Pentagon on September 11, 2005.
If Black wants to support pResident Bush's unprovoked, pointless, unpardonably bloody attack on Iraq--which, lest we forget, is completely unconnected to the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the Pentagon and the World Trade Center--I suppose it's still a free country, for some people. However, Black's time would be better served frequently entertaining the U.S. forces dying each day in Iraq. And his songfests should take place in the battle zones, not in the cozy environs of the Pentagon, to pre-registered, pre-screened, pre-searched marchers. Or Black could donate the proceeds from this album, and a sizable chunk of his considerable personal fortune, to help ensure that our fighting men and women have the adequate body armor and the fully equipped Humvees they too often lack, which conveniently protect the men who send other people's children to die. Or even--heavens to Betsy!--Clint could volunteer to fight alongside our children! He's certainly young and fit enough...
Alhough Amazon.com says it prefers that we "focus [our] comments on the product," in this case the product is inextricably linked to the obscenity of allowing only PRE-SCREENED AND NUMBERED participants to hear him perform his latest tunes at an event that is free publicity for this CD. Our names will remain in the property of the Department of Defense. We wouldn't find that if Clint Black's fans paid to see him at the nearby Wolf Trap Center for the Performing Arts, or to hear any performer at the annual July 4th concerts on the mall!
Nobody else has yet been touted as a fellow performer. Do they know something that Clint Black fails to notice? Does he know that Secretary of Defense [sic] Donald Rumsfeld has been photographed, grinning, while selling weapons to Saddam Hussein, back when he was considered a relatively harmless (or merely lucrative) buddy of the GOP?
Or is it just that most "Lay-Z-Boy-warrior" supporters of this war prefer to do so in in comfort and in a super-safe environment...?
Great Voice, Excellent Instrumentals 
2005-07-31 - I purchased this album the summer after it was released (more than a year ago), and it still remains one of my favorites. To be honest, I didn't really know much about Clint Black before I got it, but I have since purchased every one of his CDs and now consider him my favorite male artist. His vocals are always superb, with this album containing some of his most powerful work to date. The Songs "My Imagination", "She's Leaving", "Just Like You and Me", and "Someone Else's Tears" are very strong and filled with pure, believable emotion. In addition to these slower songs, there are some fun up-tempo pieces, including "Everything I Need" and "The Boogie Man". Black's excellent harmonica skills take a prominent role in the latter, as well as in "We All Fall Down". With all that said, this album is a bit pop-ish, but it still contains enough solid country qualities to make it an excellent addition to my collection. I highly recommend it!
Excellent cd ''spend my time'' of Clint Black
2004-11-18 - WOW-this album is terrific in every way there is,I LOVE IT-Clint stays true to self and still rocks classic country style,it can be compared with his early work but I still believe this cd holds it's own merit and style in a real upfront fashion-trust me,you'll love it just as much as I do.
Haunting Turn for the Young Man in Black
2004-07-08 - Country legend status is never given easily, it is earned. Here Clint Black stakes his claim with a solid effort that reaches out to the soul and well as the heart. Escaping his young honky tonk tunes, Black turns his attention inward and begins reflecting on life through his music. One of the most talented music makers ever to grace country music, Black appears to be heading down the same road traveled by the greats before him. One cannot help but think that the original Man in Black is up there smiling down upon the younger Black and saying "You tell'um son".
+3/4 -- Black's voice is more moving than his material 
2004-04-14 - Black's first album in four years finds his artistic reach expanding. In addition to having penned the album's dozen tracks, Black served as producer for his hand-picked band and recorded for his own EMG imprint. With aesthetic and commercial controls both in-hand, Black has turned out a surprisingly sophisticated collection of ballads and funk-inflected mid-tempo numbers.
Entering his forties with a wife and child, Black contemplates the changing priorities of middle-age ("Spend My Time") as well as his own human frailties ("We All Fall Down"). The latter sports a soulful mix of organ, piano harmonica, banjo and John Robinson's terrific staccato second-line drumming; the extended instrumental coda is especially fine. Robinson's drumming returns to drive the paranoid dot-com futurism of "Haywire," and Black maintains a blusey mid-tempo punch with "Everything I Need" and "The Boogie Man." The album's ballads are a more mixed lot. A few make original, personal turns, like the introspective title track and the theatrical "A Lover's Clown." Others slip into Nashville-bland melodies and lyrics.
It's a treat to hear Black integrating jazz, blues and funk flavors so effortlessly into his mid-tempo songs, and to discover how richly his voice fits a variety of moods and tones. His criticism of major label conventions and his cash on the barrelhead are brave, confident moves; whether or not he finds his way back to the charts, there's clearly a rich artistic future ahead.
3-3/4 stars, if allowed fractional ratings.
