This came out in 2001 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):
Even Babys grow up eventually.
John Waite, former ’70s rocker (you might remember Midnight Rendezvous) and ’80s popster (I know you remember Missing You), is all grown up into an AOR FM-pop balladeer. Maybe I should make that grown old — his seventh album Figure In A Landscape bears little trace of the once-feisty rocker, concentrating instead on excessively gooey romantic ballads and spineless pop. Billy Joel at his shmaltziest could have written any of these songs; the fact that Vince Gill actually did write one doesn’t help any. Aside from the continuing strength of Waite’s voice — his lightly sanded pipes are still at full strength — and a couple of songs that flirt enticingly with anthemic power-pop and soulful slide-guitar blues-rock, Figure is a disc that leaves you missing the Waite of old.
