Kim Carnes Album: “Barking at Airplanes [Bonus Tracks]”

In my opinion, this upbeat CD is Kim Carnes at her finest! Her unique voice soars...the music is mature and smart, yet youthful and fun. This CD is splendidly remastered and sparkles with pure energy from start to finish! Every one of the ten original tracks is a winner, and the three bonus tracks are wonderful as well, especially her solo version of her hit duet with Barbra Streisand, "Make No Mistake, He's Mine." The entire disk is '80s pop at its very best...and proof that Kim has a lot more to offer than just "Bette Davis Eyes." I HIGHLY recommend this disk to any fan of '80s pop. I was not a big Kim Carnes fan...but this album changed that.

This album is a perfect time capsule from the 80's. It's a fantastic example of the melodic, catchy and emotional music that was made in that great decade. It aged pretty well, despite the occasional presence of slightly dated arrangements. Kim Carnes released her best album with "Barking at airplanes", although it was some kind of an underachiever : it charted poorly and only featured one hit single. I guess it was hard to live up to the commercial standards created by "Bette Devis Eyes". But it's still a great album; there are some fine rockers ("Crazy in the night", "Begging for favors", "Abadabadango"), some very melodic midtempo songs ("Touch and go", "He makes the sun rise") and a couple of fantastic ballads ("Oliver" and "Bon voyage" are the album's best tracks). Kim Carnes had a fantastic ability to write songs that aimed at the heart, and her voice may not be the cup of tea of everybody but it's nonetheless unique and wonderfully expressive. This album found her at the peak of her pop-rock form, and although there are a couple of songs that get overly repetitive ("Don't pick up the phone" and "One kiss", for instance), it's an album that contains no weak material. The three bonus songs of this re-edition are fine too, especially her solo rendition of "Make no mistake, he's mine". A must for any Kim Carnes fan, and a great reminder of how great music was in the 80's.

Finally, this long out-of-print album has made it to CD!

Kim Carnes has made many top-rate albums. But this one is her best.

Highlights of the album are the songs best suited to her distinctive voice...Bon Voyage, Rough Edges, He Makes the Sun Rise (Orpheus), and Oliver (Voice on the Radio).

Then there are the rockers on the album...there's the number fifteen hit Crazy in the Night (her second biggest hit since Bette Davis Eyes), Abadabadango, and Don't Pick up the Phone.

There isn't a weak moment on the entire album. And it's now been freshly scrubbed and put out in digital format; the sound is incredible.

And the production company didn't skimp on the packaging either. The original photos from the album have been preserved, as well as the lyrics.

If you want to discover Kim Carnes's music beyond Bette Davis Eyes, you can't go wrong with this CD.

I still like "Cafe Racers" and "Voyeur" which to my mind have better songs, but this one is still, like all of Kim's albums, interestingly varied. I like the bonus material, a bare bones, raw demo re-do of Little Steven's classic "Forever", and English new wave group Buck's Fizz weird Europop "I Am A Camera." "One Kiss" sounds like something Stevie Nicks would have come out swirling her skirt to in the 80s and it's transition from minor verse to major chorus works well for Kim. "Begging for Favors" is so 80's video you can almost see the wet back alley and dry ice smoke and spikey haired sax player as you listen. Give it a spin for a return to Kim's heyday!!!

By getting all of Kim's reissue CDs of her 80s LPs, you have just about every 12" remix as extra tracks, including the non-LP soundtrack song "Invitation to Dance." Yet, when it came time to release "Barking at Airplanes" in all its synthdance splendor, they failed to include the amazing 12" versions of "Crazy in the Night" and "Abadabadango". They should have been here.