Borderline

AMG Review of Borderline

Stephen Thomas Erlewine
All Music Guide

Released in 1987, Borderline was one of Conway Twitty's last big hit albums. It may not have gotten too high on the country charts -- it peaked at 25 -- but it spawned no less than three Top Ten country singles: "That's My Job," "Julia," and "I Want You to Know Before We Make Love," with the latter two both reaching number two. Those three tunes are naturally the highlights of this album, which is otherwise pretty typical latter-day Twitty: exceptionally sung, as always, but the material is a little bit boilerplate. Even when the songs are generic in a good sense they're undone somewhat by the production, which bears all the hallmarks of bad late-'80s production: overly rigid and sterile, filled with synths and cavernous drums. These things make Borderline interesting as a period piece, but the true strengths of the album are those three songs, which manage to transcend the production and stand as some of Twitty's best latter-day hits.