Egyptian Lover – “I Cry (Night After Night)” Featuring Dam-Funk, Folerio and More (Singles Going Ste

Pryor Stroud: Egyptian Lover was a perpetual staple of the L.A. dance scene in the early and mid-’80s, and “I Cry (Night After Night)” demonstrates why he captured this subcultural imagination with such force. Gilded with a twirling, nocturnal synth-bass motif and vocoded back-up singers, the whole track smacks of the multi-genre pop savvy and creative eccentricity of Prince, yet still emphatically radiates the uniqueness of Egyptian Lover’s personal aesthetic. He asks you, just as Prince once did, to dig a picture that he paints before you: he is the lover from “When Doves Cry” — “How can you just leave me standing / Alone in a world that’s so cold?” — but this lover now walks the desolate streets of this world without direction, a world that is ice-cold solely for him, and cries endlessly for a lover that isn’t there, his teardrops now rivulets of ice on his cheeks. [7/10]

Emmanuel Elone: There are a lot of things I love and a lot of things I hate about “I Cry (Night After Night)”. As far as positives are concerned, the vocals and groove are fantastic, and give off a great ’80s dance vibe. This groove picks up even more when a sweet guitar solo emerges to close the track out. However, like most ’80s songs, this song seems to be afraid of having any low end bass to balance the soaring synths, and the result is a papery thin beat. The fact that the synths remain the same for the entire song also hinder its appeal, and make it a bit boring before the guitar solo revitalizes the track. Overall, “I Cry (Night After Night)” is a pretty mixed bag, with as many soaring highs as pitfall lows. [5/10]

Chris Ingalls: It wasn’t until I finished listening to the song that I found out this is actually more than 30 years old. As I was listening to it, thinking it was current, I thought, “works as both a killer contemporary dance song and a more organic tribute to the ‘80s”. The painfully pedestrian (but irresistible) drum machine pattern, cheesy synths and wanky guitar help set the mood. It has a sort of dopey, boneheaded simplicity to it, but that’s part of the charm. [7/10]

Chad Miller: The beat in the intro really grabbed my attention. The kind of twinkling noises and processed vocals were fun and fit right in. The spoken parts were kind of vanilla compared to everything else in the song, but the emotive guitar solo that comes later counteracts that. [7/10]

SCORE: 6.50