Lost/Forgotten Album #5

[Jon]

 

 

 

Thanks to Scott, he made this week's pick pretty easy, 1982's "Private Audition" from Heart.

 

To be honest, I never heard of this album until about a year after it came out. Seemed to be realesed with little to no fanfare, or I was too busy to notice. I would think after the success of the previous studio album "Bebe le Strange" and the comp/live album "Greates Hits Live", both released in 1980, the streak would continue, but guess it wasn't to be since his album wasn't a big seller, with only one minor hit (and not the one it should have been).

 

Maybe this album and the followup, "Passionworks" were just bridge-albums offering a taste of things to come, since they exploded back on the scene in a big way in 1985. Maybe it was because of MTV, airing those videos every hour. Whatever, it worked.

 

(About "Passionworks": I clearly remember the song "How Can I Refuse" getting a lot of airplay, seemed to always hear this song and "Burning Down The House" from Talking Heads while cruising around Sacramanto during the summer of '83. Sorry, just having a memoy of the good ole days.)

 

Then again, there is a marked difference between ths album and the previous output. Much more mellow, much more pop-oriented. Again, a harbinger of things to come.

 

Not to say this is a disgrace in the Heart catalog. Some might feel this is one of the weakest albums in the Heart catalog, to which I disagree. I'll pick the mid to late 80's stuff as their weakest  (but bestselling) point along with "Magazine", of course. There's still some spark of the "old" Heart scattered throughout the album ("The Situation" and the kick ass "Citys Burning" come to mind) and then some other stuff which seems to be a bit experimental, kind of an attempt to fit into the 80's style of music. 

 

Heck, I could be wrong and this is the worst Heart album ever. I say give it a chance and it just might grow on you. Especially that first song.

 

 

Private Audition

 

1. Citys Burning*

2. Bright Light Girl*

3. Perfect Stranger*

4. Private Audition*

5. Angels

6. This Man Is Mine

7. The Situation*

8. Hey Darlin' Darlin'

9. One Word

10. Fast Times

11. America*      

 

 

 

 

Availability: A couple options out there: you can get the shoddy sounding original release which is OOP for around 11 bucks or spring for the remastered version which features both "Private Audition" and "Passionworks" for around 12 bucks.

 

 

The latest greatest MSoTW is SIMPLE. But not who you think it might be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[RJhog (Admin)]

Wait, is he the singer? I'm pretty sure Delp did at least one album with him.

[Scott]

It was Delp... He did this debut album with Goodreau and another recent one, that is tough to find... Would like to get my hands on both of these on CD ...