Circle of Love
	production credits unknown
	Released on October 1981
	US CHART POSITION #26 . . . GOLD RECORD
	Find it at GEMM
ST-12121 cover [high resolution photo]

O ne-eighty is more like it. How you follow up two brilliant albums after a three-year hiatus with a half-assed piece of junk like this is beyond me. And don’t tell me “drugs,” because you’d have to lick about a billion exotic toad sacs to make “Macho City” sound like a good idea. Circle of Love contains one great song, “Circle of Love,” and that’s it. Thanks for coming, don’t let the doors of misperception hit you on the way out. The remaining three songs on side one (“Heart Like A Wheel,” “Get On Home,” “Baby Wanna Dance”) are cling-ons that Steve Miller could have pulled from his guitar-pickin’ butt at a moment’s notice. And then there’s the side-long opiate “Macho City,” in which a self-delusional Steve Miller convinces himself he’s both politically astute and funky. The Tubes might have been able to pull this off if they’d kept it to four minutes, but the city's limits have clearly been stretched past their purpose to fill up an entire side of music. The message? Steve Miller had absolutely run out of ideas. I would have had some respect for Capitol if they’d refused to release this album. Outside of the title track, Circle of Love has no purpose other than to expose Miller’s creative bankruptcy. How’s that saying go again? Better to keep quiet than open your mouth and remove all doubt. This album removes any doubt as to why Miller had been silent since Book of Dreams. It is notable only as one of the all-time greatest flops (alongside Cat Stevens’ Foreigner and George Harrison’s Somewhere In England). Tellingly, Miller wrote only two songs on the subsequent Abracadabra.

ST-12121 back cover	ST-12121 picture sleeve

TRACK LISTING

1. HEART LIKE A WHEEL    3:55
2. GET ON HOME    (traditional arr. with new lyrics by Steve Miller)    3:58
3. BABY WANNA DANCE    2:11
4. CIRCLE OF LOVE    6:22
5. MACHO CITY    18:32
   
   All songs written by Steve Miller unless noted

CREDITS

BYRON ALLRED -- keyboards
GERALD JOHNSON -- bass
GARY MALLABER -- drums, percussion
STEVE MILLER -- guitar, vocals
Rick Fisher -- recording engineer
Stephen Peringer -- cover & inside illustration
John Browning/Ken Trimpe -- design
Greg Stadler -- calligraphy

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