Beyond

Audio Remasterer: Bernie Grundman.
Recording information: 1980.
With Rise, Herb Alpert hit upon the formula of marrying his "lonely bull" trumpet sound to contemporary rhythm tracks and scored a comeback with the number one title song. Beyond was the follow-up album, and Alpert, who knew a gimmick when he found one, turned out another album of similar material, though none of it was as distinguished as "Rise." The title song, which struggled halfway up the singles chart, was Herb Alpert-meets-Giorgio Moroder (though the Eurodisco producer was not involved), while "Keep It Goin'" was reggae-plus-horn. Alpert also covered Earth, Wind & Fire's "That's the Way of the World" (he never shied away from borrowing other people's horn songs). The early indication was that the new formula was going to get stale much faster than the old one did. ~ William Ruhlmann