Cliff Richard - Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile

Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile came out in '79, and I remember the song "Carrie" being played on the radio, and then being somewhat confused when a very similar version by Cano, singing with an audible French-Canadian accent, actually outperformed the original here in Canada.

When he released "Devil Woman" in 1976, I was hooked. It was a song I really liked, but I never picked up any of his albums. It wasn't until I saw a buddy of mine at the mall in the early '80s holding a copy of Rock 'n' Roll Juvenile. I must have given him a little goofy look (which is honestly just my resting face), and he got all defensive and went on about how good the record was and that I shouldn't be a snob about his choice in records.

Well, I liked the aforementioned "Devil Woman," and I did like "Carrie." I really liked "We Don't Talk Anymore" and had recently gotten into The Tarney/Spencer Band, and at the time songs from I'm No Hero were on the radio. So I figured, "Why not?"

So I did.

Right out of the gate I was hooked with the harder-edged "Monday Thru' Friday," and then Cliff and Terry Britten, who played guitar, co-wrote most of the songs with B.A. Robertson, and co-produced the album, took me on a musical journey that would be at times rock, soft rock, new wave, and some points in between. Then came the title track, and that was it. The slide solo by Bryn Haworth was awesome. I can't remember if this was before or after I picked up The Gap. It was likely close, but it was cool to see his name in the credits. I've always thought of the title track as a nod to Larry Norman's "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music." Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.

The second side kicks off with "Sci-Fi," a song I always liked and that seemed like a nod to ELO, although oddly, their album Time wouldn't be out until 1981. Cliff then proceeded to deliver one decent pop song after another. The best of them was the incredibly moody "Carrie," a song that doesn't sound or feel like a song from 1979. The only song that I never liked as much was "Fallin' in Luv" - hey, you can't win 'em all. Regardless, all of the songs throughout the album are really cohesive, and I still really like the album.

Oddly, the only song that didn't really fit was "We Don't Talk Anymore" by Alan Tarney, and I'm glad it's here, as it would signal where Cliff was going. The next two albums featuring Tarney/Spencer are among my favourites.

The rhythm section here was amazing. Graham Jarvis infused all of the tracks with a steady beat and a palpable sense of energy and was locked in the pocket with Herbie Flowers' foundational bass playing. It's a fun read through the album insert, as his name is mangled throughout the credits.

Hard to imagine this was Cliff's 22nd release, and he wasn't 40 yet. The drive and work ethic Cliff has was hard to fathom.

It would be years later when Red Dwarf would skewer Cliff's never-ending career in the episode "Marooned," when Lister and Rimmer are reminiscing:

Lister: Come on, Rimmer. Everybody remembers when they lost their virginity. It's just one of those things you remember. Like everybody knows where they were the day Cliff Richard was shot; or when the first woman landed on Pluto; or when they put a massive toupee over the Earth to cover the hole in the ozone layer.

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continues to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner who had been with Gary from the beg...

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