One Good Reason (album)


One Good Reason is the third solo studio album by the English singer-songwriter Paul Carrack, then a member of the supergroup Mike + The Mechanics. It was originally released in November 1987, on the label Chrysalis, five years after his previous album, Suburban Voodoo. In the interim between solo albums, Carrack had been a member of Nick Lowe and his Cowboy Outfit, which issued two albums in 1984 and 1985, and joined Mike + The Mechanics for their 1985 self-titled debut.
Mike + The Mechanics drummer Peter Van Hooke and songwriter and record producer Christopher Neil also appear on the album, serving in the same roles they did for the Mechanics. The album includes two of Carrack's highest charting solo hits in the US, "Don't Shed a Tear" and "One Good Reason".

Reception

Jim Green of Trouser Press was not entirely enthusiastic about the album, writing: "Half of One Good Reason is decent-to-good, and the rest is mediocre-to-poor....it's got more radio-music slickness than Carrack's had in years, but at the cost of some identity." Green notes that "It did yield a genuine not-bad pop hit."
AllMusic's Mike DeGagne retrospectively calls "Don't Shed a Tear" "the album's highlight, bolstered by its subtle, laid-back groove with a stop and start tempo which comes across as unique to a certain extent." But he castigated the rest of the record, saying that "while the songs are well-written lyrically, they're dispensed rather half-heartedly from a musical standpoint" and "It's apparent in tracks like 'Fire With Fire' and 'Give Me a Chance' that Paul Carrack has reached the point of pop pedestrianism."
In addition to "Don't Shed A Tear", three additional singles charted from the album, including a cover of the Jackie DeShannon classic, "When You Walk in the Room". The album's title track, another one of these singles, also cracked the Top 30 on the US chart.

Track listing

Personnel

Credits are adapted from the album's liner notes.