24 Carrots is the ninth studio album by Al Stewart, released in 1980. It was Stewart's first album with his new band Shot in the Dark. Tracks 1–4 are co-written with Peter White. The single "Midnight Rocks" reached #24 on the Billboard chart in 1980. Two other singles were released from the album: "Mondo Sinistro" and "Paint By Numbers". The album has been re-released in 2007 with bonus tracks and in 2020 for its 40th anniversary.
Three music videos were created for the singles, with them featuring Stewart and backing band Shot in the Dark playing in a typical band set-up, although the "Mondo Sinistro" video also featured Stewart in some quirky restaurant scenes hitting on a young waitress (played by Cassandra Peterson, prior to her fame as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark).
Allmusic's retrospective review assessed 24 Carrots as being the last album in Al Stewart's classic period. They felt that unlike the other three albums from this period, some songs did not quite work, but that the numerous brilliant moments (mentioning particularly "Running Man", "Midnight Rocks", and "Mondo Sinistro") and the consistently elegant production make the drop in quality from those three albums small enough to group 24 Carrots in with them.[1]
↑The liner notes to the album state that this song is based on the traditional tune "The Bold Fisherman", which has no attributed writer, so the official writing credit goes solely to Al Stewart. The lyrics were written by Stewart.
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