Big Swing Face is the eighth album by American singer and pianist Bruce Hornsby. It was Hornsby's first studio album with his touring band, the Noisemakers.
The album was Hornsby's most experimental effort to date; the only album on which Hornsby barely plays any piano, it relied heavily on post-electronica beats, drum loops, Pro Tools editing, and dense synthesizer arrangements. The album also boasts a "stream-of-consciousness wordplay" of lyrics that are in many ways more eccentric and humorous than previous work.
The jazz fusion jam on "Cartoons & Candy" and the gesture towards Hornsby's jam band influence with Steve Kimock's extended guitar solo on "The Chill" highlighted some of the album's only familiar territory, and Hornsby cites the opening track, "Sticks and Stones," as his partial homage to Radiohead's "Everything in its Right Place."
Big Swing Face received mixed reviews, ranging from "a new and improved Bruce Hornsby" to feeling as if "someone else is singing", to the album being called one of the "strangest records of 2002". Album sales were not helped by poor promotion from RCA, perhaps prompting Hornsby's decision to leave the label.
Read more about Big Swing Face: Track Listing, Musicians
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