Loverboy - Get Lucky

Loverboy dropped their sophomore album in the fall of 1981 and cemented their place among Canadian rock royalty (it's a small club, but a club nonetheless). The first two songs on their debut are classics, but for years I didn't really connect with the rest of that album, it felt like mostly filler back then (still does but I'm more forgiving now). However, the follow up Get Lucky was another thing all together and they delivered a masterclass in pop/rock that would polarize kids all over the country into two camps. "This rocks! / This sucks!" This was decades before Nickelback would take over the mantle of most divisive band in the land.

I will publicly apologize to my old dear friend Steve Little who loved "Gangs in the Streets" and just after the album came out a bunch of us were hanging out and Steve had his little cassette player and seemed to be playing this song and Gary Numan's "Cars" over and over. Steve loved music, and to this day has an enthusiasm for music that makes us mere mortals feel inadequate. I was trying to be in the "this sucks" camp and said something snotty about bubble gum pop or something equally biting from my 18 year old bag of insults - but it was said with intent, and I never forgot and was a little ashamed at my own behaviour even back then.

Sorry for being a dick Steve.

At the time I dismissed "Gangs in the Streets" as a lame and derivative rehash of "Turn Me Loose" without any of the swagger or awesomeness - of course over time the song has grown on me, and I find I have a soft spot for Gary Numan as well. I'm not sure if that can be attributed to guilt or if I just got worn down over time.

Anyway.

Get Lucky took what worked on the debut and the band expanded on their mix of accessible rock with a driving beat and new wave pop sensibilities - enhanced by Doug Johnson's keyboard work that added textures and sounds blending rock and new wave and took power pop to another level. This isn't to downplay the rest of the band, each added their own elements to the band's sound. As a guitar player I have long admired Paul Dean's style and combined with Mike Reno's voice everything went into the recipe and what came out wasn't overdone - like the perfect oatmeal, it was just right.

"Working for Weekend" arguably their signature song, bleeds late 70s rock anthem with a cowbell, and delivers one of, if not the best, two note guitar solo in the history of rock. Gotta love a wah wah pedal.

Sadly like Brian May, Paul too wanted to sing. I mean, seriously you're in a band with a singer's singer, and you want to sing? Sigh. Still he wasn't so bad you wanted to skip over his contribution (and I did pick up his first solo album) but it did make you wonder what if he'd just let Mike doing all the singing.

Bryan Adams co-wrote the highly infectious "Jump" one of my favourites on the album. It's a song that fitted the band perfectly. It's interesting to follow the band's trajectory at home versus how they fared in the US market. While Get Lucky was their most commercial album, it didn't do as well as their debut here in Canada, and each album would sell less than its predecessor, something I still find very odd. By the time they released their final album of the '80s "Wildside" the album would go gold in both the US and Canada, but selling 50,000 units versus the 500,000 they did on the debut is a pretty steep drop.

When they were good they were really good. I'll proudly cop to being on the "This rocks" side of the ledger.

As to the famous "cheeky" cover with the red leather pants and the crossed fingers hoping to "Get Lucky" - I'm just leaving that where it is ... there was a time when the mystery of the "slim chance in tight pants" (thank you Paul Carrack) clad in the tight red leather was the stuff of school boy fantasies. Turns out the pants were filled by the photographer's 13 year old daughter (I can imagine the pants being passed from model to model like Cinderella's slipper - apparently she was the only one who could fit the pants, they were so small) which kind of takes all the fun out of it now.

Still, it was a hell of an album.