It may have been a hit, but years later, it clearly sounds like one of his worst records.

Here, he sounds as he's sleepwalking and turning out product for the first time in his career (at least the early Liberty recordings were a hungry attempt at hits). With 'Always on My Mind' and, to a lesser extent, 'Let It Be Me,' it works because his production style suits the songs and Nelson sings well, but 'Do Right Woman, Do Right Man,' 'A Whiter Shade of Pale' (complete with vocals from Waylon Jennings), and 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' are all flat readings, never showing the spark in either delivery or arrangement that marks Nelson as one of popular music's great interpretive singers. This is uniformly pleasant, but it's also rather straight-jacketed, hemmed in by Moman's sterile, synth-heavy productions. Listening to it now, all that success seems undeserved since the album not only plays as the country-pop record Willie avoided making all these years, but by consisting primarily of familiar rock covers, it also plays as pandering to the mass audience he's achieved.

At the time, it was a huge, huge hit - his biggest ever, actually, spending 22 weeks at the top of the country charts, selling over four million copies, launching a platinum single with the title track (which reached number five on the pop charts), and winning the CMA's Album of the Year award. Lyrically, the subject matter follows JT's journey from the hood to Oxford and back again, giving nods to his Rhodes scholarship and his home neighborhood's. With Always on My Mind, he teams with producer Chips Moman and embarks on a period of pernicious predictability, giving himself completely over to Moman, who moves him toward rock covers and adult contemporary pop with this record. The first and only single off of JT's upcoming debut project, Steel Rose, 'Eastside 2' once again highlights his sincerity.Opening with a soft and eerie loop, JT's nonchalant flow starts it off before the drums start to slowly kick in. But you were always on my mind You were always on my mind Tell me Tell me that your sweet love hasnt died And give me Give me one more chance To keep you satisfied Ill keep you satisfied Instrumental Interlude Little things I should have said and done I just never took the time But you were always on my mind You were always on my mind You. Sometimes, it could fall a little flat, particularly when he kept replicating Stardust, but that was part of the charm of Nelson's unpredictability. Throughout the late '70s, Nelson's freewheeling, organically eclectic music was not just the biggest thing in country, it was also some of its best, most adventurous music. Whether intentionally or not, the first album after a greatest-hits collection always raises the curtain on a new era, and in Willie Nelson's case, the difference between the era recapped on 1981's Greatest Hits (& Some That Will Be) and the one started with 1982's Always on My Mind is startling.

Jt always on mymind