Rod Stewart - Atlantic Crossing (1975/2025) (Blu-ray Hi-Res)

Previously prepared but unreleased 1975 quadraphonic mix. Atlantic Crossing is the sixth solo album by Rod Stewart. Released on 15 August 1975, and recorded in five American studios including Muscle Shoals, Alabama, between April and June 1975, it was produced by Tom Dowd, and peaked at number one in the UK (his fourth solo album to do so), and number nine on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. The album was divided into a fast side and a slow side, apparently at the suggestion of Stewart's then-girlfriend, Swedish actress Britt Ekland.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, May 8, 2025

There's a fabulous medley waiting for some enterprising arranger to put together featuring one of Rod Stewart's best remembered tunes from this album and another tune with the same name which has some surprisingly similar accompaniment figures. This sixth solo album from Rod was an immensely popular release and was the fourth album in a row of Stewart's to get to the vaunted Number 1 position on the UK album charts, though it "only" managed to just crack the Top 10 on this side of the pond. But the album had considerable impact and generated two hit singles, at least in Stewart's native neck of the woods. "This Old Heart of Mine" made it into the Top 5 in the UK, but barely got into the Top 100 over here, but "Sailing", the tune which would make a near perfect companion for the similarly named piece by Christopher Cross, got to Number 1 in the UK and Number 2 in the US. The album was noted at the time for having a "slow side" and a "fast side" something that may be at least a bit more subliminal given the "playlist" aspect of the audio Blu-ray, but the entire album has significant production sheen and Rod sounds great throughout.

Once again as with most of the Quadio releases, the video content here is simply the static menu(s) seen in the screenshots I've uploaded to accompany this review. Yet again Rhino is inconsistent in its authoring and this disc does allow changing codecs with the colored buttons on your remote. As can be seen in the screenshots, the colors of the track names change as you cycle through.

The glossy production values of Atlantic Crossing are offered pretty luxuriously in the DTS-HD Master Audio 4.0 track on this disc. Glistening instrumentation is presented with some appealing discrete channelization (guitars are frequently heard in the rear channels, to cite just one example), and with elements like the beautiful string arrangements (including by Arif Mardin) tending to fill all of the channels simultaneously, providing a nice, comfy "bed" for Rod's often gritty vocals. Kind of interestingly, the drums are rather variously channeled, at times clearly in the rear, but other times in the front, and even on occasion when a battery of toms is utilized, kind of panning across the soundstage.


As with every Quadio release I've reviewed, there is no on disc supplemental material. The insert booklet recreates the original album's cover information, while offering the Quadio standbys of a picture of the boxes holding the master tapes, as well as Rhino's typical verbiage on setup.

This is a lushly produced album, but it still manages to deliver a bit of a hardscrabble quality courtesy of Rod's "experienced" vocals. There's a lot of really lovely material on the album, and while the "slow" and "fast" sides are "all one" here, the sequencing actually is quite enjoyable as it stands. Recommended.

Tracklist
1 Three Time Loser
2 Alright For An Hour
3 All In The Name Of Rock 'N' Roll
4 Drift Away
5 Stone Cold Sober
6 I Don't Want To Talk About It
7 It's Not The Spotlight
8 This Old Heart Of Mine
9 Still Love You
10 Sailing