The Painter

AMG Review of The Painter

William Ruhlmann
All Music Guide

The Painter continued Anka's attempt to create a body of mature love songs. For the most part, he continued to approach romance from the usual angles -- love/happy, love/sad, love/missing you -- but his couples were grown-up, '70s people: "I'm sure you've had your share of other lovers," and Anka acknowledged in "(You Bring Out) The Best In Me," going on to express his own devotion in terms of endurance. "I'm not saying I'm unlike all the others," he added, but "I'm still here." It was such declarations on the album's best songs, such as the chart single "Happier" and "I'll Help You," that brought depth to the record. None of this put him on a par with, say, Paul Simon in the singer-songwriter sweepstakes, but it did show him to be a craftsmanlike lyricist who could inject unusually poignant meaning into otherwise stereotypical sentiments. Unfortunately, the album contained no hit on the scale of "(You're Having) My Baby" or "Times Of Your Life," and Anka's commercial second wind began to dissipate.