I Can't Stop is the 27th studio album by American soul singer Al Green. It was released by Blue Note Records on November 17, 2003, in the United Kingdom and on November 18 in the United States.[1] Produced by Willie Mitchell, the album was Green's first since 1995, his first for Blue Note, and his first collaboration with Mitchell since 1985's He Is the Light; it was also Green's first entirely secular recording since the 1970s.
I Can't Stop received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, it received an average score of 75 out of 100, based on 18 reviews.[13]Mojo opined "(Green) is, if anything, singing better than ever".[9] In The Guardian, Alexis Petridis stated "The songwriting is largely superb, which keeps the album from sounding like a clever pastiche".[8]Robert Christgau, writing in The Village Voice, said that the album is not a sophisticated modernization or comeback to "a form he never lost", but instead shows that Green has "retained plenty of voice and the guile to know what to do with it."[6] In a mixed review, Tom Smucker of The Village Voice felt that Green gets "tied down when production's slathered on a bit too thick".[14]Blender magazine dismissed it as "a weak echo of those gloriously clean and spacious [1970s] LPs".[5]
In a retrospective review for the magazine, Christgau gave the album four stars and called it Green's "finest late pop album". He felt that, although Green "can no longer shade with sprightly delicacy," his singing is louder and strengthened by "two decades in the pulpit at his own Memphis church."[15]
"Rainin' in My Heart" is a new song written by Green & Mitchell for this album. Certain song databases have mistakenly classified Green's song as a cover of Slim Harpo's "Rainin' in My Heart", written by James Moore (aka Slim Harpo) and Jerry West (aka J.D. Miller). The lyrics to the two songs are completely unrelated except for the title.[16]
