''Morton Downey Jr. Sings'' is an album by

talk show host Below is a list of talk show A talk show is a television programming, radio programming or podcast genre structured around the act of spontaneous conversation.Bernard M. Timberg, Robert J. Erler'' (2010Television Talk: A History of the TV Talk ...

Morton Downey Jr. released in 1989.The Los Angeles Times
/ref> When released it had advanced orders of more than 500,000 copies. Downey promoted the album by performing the song "Hey Mr. Dealer" on an episode of ''

The Arsenio Hall Show ''The Arsenio Hall Show'' is an American syndicated late-night talk show created by and starring comedian Arsenio Hall. There have been two different incarnations of ''The Arsenio Hall Show''. The original series premiered on January 3, 1989 ...

''.

Reception

The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' called it the worst album of the 1980s. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' said, "Mr. Downey's singing is in the gruff country mode of

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American singer-songwriter. Most of his music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially songs from the later stages of his career. ...

and

Kris Kristofferson Kristoffer Kristofferson (June 22, 1936 – September 28, 2024) was an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He was a pioneering figure in the outlaw country movement of the 1970s, moving away from the polished Nashville sound and toward a m ...

but lacks the emphatic firmness of tone and pitch that gives even spoken monologues by those singers an underlying sense of musical cadence. ''Morton Downey Jr. Sings'' is anything but subtle." ''The New York Times'' also said the music qualified as

country pop Country pop (also known as urban cowboy or even urban country) is a fusion genre of country music and pop music that was developed by members of the country genre out of a desire to reach a larger, mainstream audience. Country pop music blends g ...

. In 2016, the album came in at #2 on a "Top 10 Musical Oddities" list for the Alternative Nation website.

Track listing

References

1989 albums Morton Downey Jr. albums {{1980s-rock-album-stub