The dividing point for
Kenny Loggins
was, naturally,
Footloose
, the blockbuster 1984 hit that helped turn him into something of a teen sensation at the age of 36, and with the assistance of
Michael Omartian
and
David Foster
, he dove headfirst into synthesizers, synthesizing everything outside of backing vocals and chicken-scratch guitars. Occasionally, he tossed a glance back to the yacht rock of
High Adventure
-- "I'm Gonna Do It Right" is a nice
Michael McDonald
song, just given a tight sequencing; "At Last" also contains similar shimmering soft echoes -- but a good chunk of
Vox Humana
is bombastic and brittle, a somewhat pathetic attempt to inhabit the sound of 1985. Naturally, this desperation kept it from being a true hit -- the title track just barely cracked the Top 30 -- but all those stylistic cutting-edge flourishes that kept it off the charts are the reason to listen to it all these years later: it says 1985 like no other album can. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine