Most of All

There are Bacharach/David songs here — “(They Long to Be) Close to You” had then been recently popularized by the Carpenters, but there are no new songs written expressly for B.J. Thomas. Instead, there’s a shift toward solid, generic, professional writers who could write toward the sound of the times without quite delivering memorable tunes. That said, they’re hardly unpleasant tunes. but, then again, the point of Thomas’ career at this point was to be pleasant, and in that regard, Most of All succeeds very well, trumping Everybody’s Out of Town. Part of its success is that the songs are designed to be pleasing soft rock — there’s none of Bacharach/David’s neo-vaudeville, instead there’s subdued, symphonic Joe South soul in “No Love at All,” and a bit of trippy post-hippie pop in Chip Taylor’s “Circle Round the Sun” — sounds that fit well with the dripping sentiments of “I Don’t Know Any Better.” Thomas never pushes forward on this material; he settles into its shag carpet, and if there’s not much distinction in that sound, there is at least a bit of period comfort.