Great Rock Albums of 1981: Loverboy

Most likely, I am repeating myself again, I have a habit of doing that. But I, along with the rest of my battalion, spent the summer of 1981 on air alert. That meant we couldn’t go very far and for three of those nine weeks, when my company was the alpha increment, we couldn’t even leave base. Therefore, most of my free evenings that summer were spent at the Driftwood watching Twinkles and her co-workers strut their stuff to some great songs both from that year or before. There was one song that seemed to get played a lot, no matter which of those ladies was up on stage at the time. That song was “Turn Me Loose” by Canadian rockers Loverboy. This was one of those songs that rocked my summer and would have done so even if I didn’t have the Driftwood’s juke box reminding me how good it was.

“Turn Me Loose” is simply the song that spearheads a great rocker of an album. There are plenty of other cool songs on the album on it. The follow up single, “The Kid is Hot Tonite” testifies to this and the same can be said of “Teenage Overdose.” I am very sure that if I named any track on the album, at least one person would put it forth as a great track. The keyboard introduction on DOA might, at first, make you think that this is going to be a more progressive track, and maybe it is compared to the rest of the album but the hard rock vibe doesn’t disappear. It is little wonder why this  debut album from Loverboy was present in the tape collection of many people I knew back in 1981.

Track Listing:

1. The Kid Is Hot Tonite

2. Turn Me Loose

3. Always On My Mind

4. Lady of the 80s

5. Little Girl

6. Prissy Prissy

7. Teenage Overdose

8. DOA

9. It Don’t Matter

Loverboy

Mike Reno- lead vocals

Paul Dean- guitar, backing vocals

Doug Johnson- keyboards, backing vocals

Scott Smith- bass, backing vocals

Matt Franette- drums

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but for me, a marine in North Carolina at the time restricted to going no further than 15 miles from the base, the debut album from Loverboy brought a much needed way to let off steam to me and my comrades in arms. I was glad to have this rocking album then and those memories still resonate whenever I listen to any song from it.

Next post: Pat Benatar- Precious Time

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