Flash is the fifth studio album by guitarist Jeff Beck, released in July 1985 by Epic/CBS Records. The album reached No. 39 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart as well as reaching the top 60 in four other countries.
Two singles also charted, the first being a reunion with singer Rod Stewart (from the Jeff Beck Group) for a cover of "People Get Ready" by Curtis Mayfield/The Impressions, which reached No. 5 on Billboards Mainstream Rock and No. 48 on the Hot 100, as well as the top 40 in four other countries. The second single, "Gets Us All in the End", reached No. 20 on Mainstream Rock. The instrumental "Escape" went on to win the award for Best Rock Instrumental Performance at the 1986 Grammys, which was to be Beck's first of many such awards.
Overview
The album is unique for Beck in that it is composed mainly of songs with vocals, save for two instrumentals in the form of "Escape" and "You Know, We Know", written by his longtime collaborators Jan Hammer and Tony Hymas respectively. Designed to be a foray into pop music in order to capitalise on that sound at the time, Flash was produced by Nile Rodgers for that reason. Such was the desire by the record company to score a hit album, Beck uncharacteristically found himself singing on "Get Workin'" and "Night After Night", at the insistence of Rodgers. "Ambitious" and "People Get Ready" feature a rare instance of Beck playing a Jackson Soloist rather than his usual Fender Stratocaster. Despite its success, he has since expressed his disdain for the album, calling it a "record company goof" and "a very sad sort of time" for him.Guy, Paul (1999). "Jeff Beck - Who Else?". Paul Guy Guitars. Retrieved 31 March 2020.
"Ambitious" had a notable presence on MTV shortly after the album's release, primed by a phenomenon of the era that saw a brief run of multiple cameo appearances within the same video. The opening gag in the video is Donny Osmond trying to land a major audition, followed by an odd assortment of celebrities of the time singing verses or playing an instrument, including TV stars Abby Dalton, Parker Stevenson, and Herve Villechaize, and musicians Dave Alvin, Gerry Beckley, Marilyn McCoo, Jimmy Hall, and Jon Butcher. In addition, Cheech Marin and Al Kooper reprise characters created for the earlier music video for Marin's "Born in East L.A." single, and Herb Alpert appears at the very end, too late to play trumpet.
The CD edition of Flash included two bonus tracks, "Nighthawks" and "Back on the Streets", which were originally released as B-sides. Another track from the album's recording sessions, "Wild Thing" (a cover of The Troggs), was released only as a promo single and never on the album, but would later be featured on Beck's 1991 compilation album Beckology.
Composition
Unlike much of Beck's work, Flash is regarded as a pop outing, and was dubbed a pop rock album by critic Glenn Astarita. According to writer Tom Harrison, the combination of Rodgers, Jimmy Hall and other outsider contributors lends Flash a "high-priced funk-rock foundation." Music writer Michael J. Smitreski wrote that the album forewent the experimental jazz of Beck's preceding work for a "mostly dance-rock" style, while writer John Herald considered the album to be Beck's "return to rock", following his jazz-rock work of the mid-1970s. David Fricke wrote that the album explores "eighties dance music". It has also been described as a work of funk metal by Fricke and Robert Christgau, the latter of whom felt the "funk-metal fusion" was derivative of Duran Duran and Foreigner. Beck described Flash as an attempt to "get commercial in a reachable way" via "decent, guitar pop". He said of his return to rockier music, "I sensed missed expectations from people coming to my concerts, and I was a bit envious of how the rock bands could hop about instead of standing there concentrating."