10 Perfect Rock Singles On Bad Albums
4. It's In The Way That You Use It - Eric Clapton: August (1986)
If you want to stink up your home with some '80s cheese, then Eric Clapton's tenth studio album is all you need. It's riddled with lounge piano, sleazy saxophone and enough synthesiser to make you curse the instrument's inventor.
For the most part, Clapton in the '80s was boring, unimaginative and played things as safe as he could. During the '70s the former admirer of Jimi Hendrix had espoused a tirade of racist dogma at one of his live concerts. For a guy who made his name borrowing from black blues musicians, it all seemed out of sorts.
Although Clapton went on to apologise for his actions, denouncing his words as booze-fulled ramblings, he spent the next decade sheepishly trying to stay under the radar. The late '70s and early '80s were subjected to tepid and uninspired albums from the former guitar god. He seemed only capable of leaning on the most mainstream of sounds.
But spearheading the release of August was a track that saw Clapton doing his best Huey Lewis impression. And damn, was it fun. It contained that kind of optimistic joy you only get from John Hughes movies. Go take a day off work, and run around the city with this playing through your headphones, you'll feel like Ferris Bueller.