Frida - Something's Going On

Released in the fall of 1982, it was probably in the summer of '83 that I first heard the title track. Phil Collins mania hadn't gripped the world ... he was a blip on the horizon - you could see him coming. His distinctive drums were the reason the song grabbed me initially, but it was a killer tune, and Daryl Stuermer's guitar solo was the icing on the cake.

Yes, this was the same Frida who was in ABBA, although at the time she seemed to be old as dirt she was probably only 36 or 37 years old. Of course considering I was still in my teens (okay, as late into my teens as you can get) that's a big gap.

I bought the album mainly for the title track, but I found there was a lot to like and as a bonus (at least to me) was Jim Rafferty's (brother to Gerry) "I See Red," a song I always really liked. Both Russ Ballard and Rod Argent contributed a song each, with Russ Ballard's "I Know There's Something Going On" being the big song here. There were a lot of really good songs on the album, more than I remembered to be honest.

The album has been a pleasant surprise revisiting. Aside from the insipid duet with Phil Collins, "Here We'll Stay," there aren't any real missteps. Although to be fair, the duet would have likely been a single except that Genesis was just taking off, and Phil apparently objected to having it released ... I'm pretty sure that if this had come in '85 it would have simply been another in a long line of duets Phil seemed to be involved with. No doubt this would have been huge ... even if I thought it sucked.

Timing is everything.

The album was just a smidge ahead of its time ... there's something really crisp and clean about the songs and the arrangements that just fitted perfectly with the '80s, or more specifically what would be remembered as the '80s. The album had all the ingredients to be a big deal, but somehow never caught on. Maybe it wasn't ABBA enough, and people weren't ready for a Phil Collin's produced collection of brooding pop songs. Too bad, "To Turn to Stone," written by Peter Belotte and Giorgio Moroder, felt like a familiar friend, and should have given her old fans a big case of the feels.

Perhaps it did for all that, as the album would hit number one in Sweden and chart as high as number two in Norway.

There was something going on in Scandinavia ... maybe the rest of the world missed out.

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