Chris Isaak - Forever Blue (Remastered 2025) (1995/2025)

Forever Blue is the fifth studio album by American rock and roll musician Chris Isaak, released on May 23, 1995. The album included three singles: the Grammy-nominated "Somebody's Crying," "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing," featured in Stanley Kubrick's final film, Eyes Wide Shut and "Graduation Day," featured in the 1996 film Beautiful Girls. In 1996, Forever Blue was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rock Album, though it lost to Alanis Morissette's Jagged Little Pill.

Without identifying who it was, Isaak made his mood clear with Forever Blue by including a farewell letter in the liner notes to the lover who had dumped him. Kicking things off with the snaky, almost guttural "Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing," later made a theme song for Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, Isaak lives up to the confused, fractured message in that letter, turning Forever Blue into his own exorcism. On the one hand, he doesn't sound any less impassioned than before, but on the other, those who have criticized him for seeming to concentrate on the surface of his influences rather than the depths would probably find themselves outfoxed here. There's a stronger energy and fiercer edge to the music, as moodily beautiful as ever, to be sure, but cutting just a little more close to the bone, with even the quiet moments – check the heartbreaking title track – sounding truly lost and forlorn. Kenney Dale Johnson's drums hit with a harder energy in the louder moments, the more upbeat melodies have that much more of an incongruously jaunty feeling when set against the often-eviscerating lyrics, as directed as much against himself as the lost love in question. Still, the mysterious departed figure is clearly the main target, and songs like "Don't Leave Me on My Own" and "There She Goes" leave little doubt where things are headed, while "Go Walking Down There" practically explodes with bitterness, Isaak's lyrics lashing out against "the happy people" around him. The instrumental range on San Francisco Days carries over here, but with a newer emphasis on rougher edges mixed with quieter deliveries and arrangements – a seemingly odd balance, but one that punctuates the sheen of Isaak's earlier work with aplomb, as well as forecasting ahead toward Baja Sessions. Erik Jacobsen again is the production ear behind it all, and credit to him for helping make sure those chances get taken.

Tracklist
01. Baby Did A Bad Bad Thing (Remastered 2025) (2:55)
02. Somebody's Crying (Remastered 2025) (2:48)
03. Graduation Day (Remastered 2025) (3:12)
04. Go Walking Down There (Remastered 2025) (2:50)
05. Don't Leave Me On My Own (Remastered 2025) (2:15)
06. Things Go Wrong (Remastered 2025) (3:02)
07. Forever Blue (Remastered 2025) (2:42)
08. There She Goes (Remastered 2025) (3:15)
09. Goin' Nowhere (Remastered 2025) (2:54)
10. Changed Your Mind (Remastered 2025) (3:52)
11. Shadows In A Mirror (Remastered 2025) (4:00)
12. I Believe (Remastered 2025) (3:10)
13. The End Of Everything (Remastered 2025) (3:07)