Skip to main content

Mr. Mister - Welcome to the World

Mr. Mister
Mr. Mister managed to catch lightning in a bottle on Welcome to the Real World. Although they had released a moderately successful album in 1984 that managed to crack the Billboard to 200, most people, myself included had no idea their '85 release wasn't their debut.

The album is best remembered for two great singles, "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie" that were pretty much saturating radio at the time. I'd always assumed the album was a monster in terms of sales, and in Canada it sold over 300,000 copies. However in the US market it did go platinum but I'd always assumed it was in the millions. Not that sales is any indication of anything other than popularity. Still, when I really liked something, I assumed everybody like it too.

Now, let me qualify assessment. I know I've said it before, but I loved making mix tapes for the car and I mined the big songs right away, and honestly didn't play the album as often as you'd think. Sure, the ballad "Run to Her" was a great slow dance. The rest of the album was decent. There were no obvious dogs in the litter but I gravitated to the shiny things.

I thought Mr. Mister were the shit. So much so that I recall reading an article in the paper where the music critic was writing about the current crop of artists and their likelihood of ever being in the Hall of Fame. I remember agreeing with him on certain acts, but when he wrote Mr. Mister's chances were slim to none I was actually offended. How dare he! They're huge, and "Broken Wings" is a masterpiece.

Of course within a month or two I had moved on to the next shiny thing.

inside photo
So here I am in the basement, and recently I found not one but two really great copies of the album. I put one away for my little sister who loves the '80s. Playing the first side, I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Sure, it's more than dated in places with the technology tropes that felt so bleeding edge at the time, and now just sound like cheese (you know I like the cheese). The songs were tight, polished and shiny. Yeah, one could also add generic as Richard Page's vocals while fantastic, were also hard to distinguish from some other singers. Although, his opening notes on "Kyrie" are pure Page, so maybe he wasn't as generic as all that after all.

Speaking of the big songs, the second sides opens with the three singles pulled from the album. While "Is It Love" was the weaker of the three, it's a solid song. "Kyrie" was a song that for a lot of us kids who grew up in the church thought it was cool that part of a prayer response was in a hit song. However, it really is "Broken Wings" with the bass groove and mid tempo swagger that is the centrepiece of the album. There are a handful of near perfect pop songs and this is one of them. If for nothing else this is why Mr. Mister is still remembered. They may never get into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but people will remember them.

back cover
It's weird in that I never did go and pick up their debut as I had really liked this one. I sort of remember looking for it, but must not have tried that hard. I did wait for a follow up, but when the band dropped Go On ... in '87 there was little to no fanfare, and I didn't even know it existed until years later.

For a moment in time these guys welcomed me into their world and it was a happy place. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure.  I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTOs Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) who knows maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust - it seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight ahead pop, or rock. It was leaning to the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough the vocals reminded me of Mi...

Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again.  I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t...

Saturday Night Fever - The Original Movie Soundtrack

It was going to happen sooner or later. Nostalgia is a cruel Mistress...she can dull the sharpest edges and over time can even soften the hardest of opinions. I found this in the dollar bin, and frankly at a dollar I was worried about what this would cost me. Not only from a monetary perspective, but my time, and more important my credibility. Fourteen year old me was screaming "Don't you dare. DON'T DO IT! Put it down. Walk away!" Then there was grey bearded me holding it and looking at it, thinking, "How bad could it be? I actually kind of like "Staying Alive" and me buying this record won't bring disco back, and no one will have to know I bought this." I pulled the album out of the bin, and carefully took out the records. They'd seen better days, and there were a couple of decent scratches that would no doubt make their presence known later. The jacket was in decent condition, and both of the albums had the original sleeves. I dusted the...