CoronaVinyl Day 388 (H): Partners in Crime by Rupert Holmes

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "H," and it's Valentine's Day, so I went with an album with one of the classic loves songs of the late '70s and early '80s.  The album is Rupert Holmes's fifth studio album, 1979's Partners in Crime, and the song -- you all know it -- is "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)."

Holmes was (and presumably still is) a renaissance man.  He got his start in the late '60s writing songs for other artists, including The Buoys' 1971 #17 hit "Timothy," which was about cannibalism.  He then started releasing his own music while still writing for others, including Barbra Streisand, and also scoring some films and producing albums for others.

Partners in Crime was his biggest album, reaching #33 on the Billboard Hot 100, behind the strength of three Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100:  "Escape" went to #1 (and #1 in Canada), "Him" reached #6, and "Answering Machine" got to #32.  The album is loungey late '70s/early '80s soft rock.

While he never reached the same success after that with his own music, he wrote The Jets' 1986 #3 hit "You Got It All," among other songs for other artists.

In the early '80s, Holmes turned his attention to playwrighting, writing The Mystery of Edwin Drood, based on an unfinished Charles Dickens novel.  It was a huge success, winning five Tonys out of eleven nominations, including Best Musical and two individual Tonys for Holmes.  He has continued to write plays and musicals since then, as well as creating a TV show for AMC in the mid '90s called Remember WENN and writing several books. 

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Escape (The Piña Colada Song)"
Like I was going to choose anything else.  It's the classic tale of a bored man who takes out a personal ad in the local paper to seemingly ditch his lady.  Someone responds.  They decided to rendezvous at a bar called O'Malley's and plan their escape.  But guess who shows up?  His lady.  Turns out, she likes piña coladas too, which for some reason, he didn't know until then.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Answering Machine"
I went with this one because it's just such a perfect example of the soft rock of that era that was essentially all but eliminated within the next two years.  It's all about star-crossed lovers playing phone tag.  Instead of just saying "call me back," they leave long, heartfelt messages that get cut off by the end of the answering machine tape.