Journeyman is the eleventh solo studio album by
Eric Clapton. Heralded as a return to form for Clapton, who had struggled with alcohol addiction and recently found sobriety, the album has a 1980s electronic sound, but it also includes blues songs like "
Before You Accuse Me", "Running on Faith", and "Hard Times." "
Bad Love" was released as a single, reaching the No. 1 position on the
Album Rock Chart in the United States, and being awarded a
Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance in 1990. "
Pretending" had also reached the No. 1 position on the Album Rock Chart the previous year, remaining at the top for five weeks ("Bad Love" had only stayed for three weeks).
The album reached number 2 on the
UK Albums Chart and 16 on the US
Billboard 200 chart, and it went on to become double platinum in the US. Clapton has said Journeyman is one of his favourite albums.[5]
Critical reception
Reviewing in December 1989 for The Village Voice,
Robert Christgau gave the album a B-minus and wrote of Clapton, "What did you expect him to call it – Hack? Layla and 461 Ocean Boulevard were clearly flukes: he has no record-making knack. So he farms out the songs, sings them competently enough, and marks them with his guitar. Which sounds kind of like
Mark Knopfler's."[6] In a retrospective review for
AllMusic,
Stephen Thomas Erlewine praised the album for its "convincing" vocals and "consistently strong" songwriting.[7]
^"Discos de Oro y Platino". Archived from the original on 6 July 2011. Retrieved 6 March 2020.{{
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