Lonely Soldier Boy II: An Acoustic Album - by Michael Bradley

Being a Robotech fan, I was always jealous of the Japanese anime music industry. If you had a hot show, you got soundtracks, remake albums, image albums, live albums, drama albums... being a Macross 7 fan, I loved that Fire Bomber released Live Fire!! and Acoustic Fire!! and always wished that my favorite anime singer of all time, Yellow Dancer, would get the same treatment.

Well, thank the stars for Michael Bradley, the singing voice of Yellow Dancer. When he discovered that he had a following because of his work on Robotech-- especially among soldiers and their families for the song "Lonely Soldier Boy" -- he started playing the songs at conventions and set to work on a remake album, redoing the Yellow Dancer songs in a more modern-day style. He wanted to put Yellow Dancer on the cover and have it be an official Robotech album, but Harmony Gold's legal department wanted such a huge cut of the album sales that it would have been unprofitable for him. As a result, the album was released simply as Lonely Soldier Boy. It came out early this year, and has been one of my favorite albums of 2008.

When Michael Bradley then announced he was going to follow it up with an all-acoustic album, I was all smiles. At long last, Yellow Dancer was getting the treatment I always thought he deserved. (Err, she deserved. S/he. ...Never mind.)

What I didn't expect was Lonely Soldier Boy II: An Acoustic Album to be what is possibly the best Robotech music album, ever. These arrangements are just breathtaking. In addition to the five songs he did as Yellow Dancer, Michael Bradley has also included acoustic versions of the other songs he worked on for Robotech and Robotech: The Movie. Many of these tracks just leave me speechless. I got that little tingle down my spine that I used to get when I was 16 and these songs were all new.

You can hear samples from both albums (and of course order your own copies) at michaelbradleymusic.com.