I'd not listened to this is in a long, long time. My memories of this are mostly warm and fuzzy except for "Bad Is Bad" a song that to me was true to it's title. My buddy back in the day would go on about how "Ghost Busters" and "I Want a New Drug" were the same song ... I know there's a feel in the bass or the melody or something. I suppose there was enough merit to warrant a settlement, but to me all I heard was a gaggle of chicks shouting "Ghost busters" over and over. I found it irritating, and now it's nostalgic, go figure - and for all that I still can't hear it.
The album was huge and it seemed to hang around a long time. I suppose that was due more to the fact that it was released in the fall of '83 and didn't really seem to take off until the spring of '84 and the band kept mining singles for almost a year. The album was like a Russian doll.
It's an album very much of it's time but was also outside of the new wave and ubiquitous drums machines that were everywhere, which doesn't mean the band was above using modern technology, they were just a little more subtle. This was a good old fashioned band who mined good old fashioned rock and roll. It wasn't retro, but it was steeped in tradition. Heck the first side is a veritable feast of ear candy, starting with "The Heart of Rock and Roll" through to "I Want a New Drug" it was a collection of great singles (I'm pretending "Bad is Bad" doesn't exist). This was the ever infamous third album and the band wanted to stay employed. After the relative success of the single "Do You Believe in Love" from their 1982 album
Picture This the pressure was on, whether it was external from the label, or just imposed the guys certainly rose to the occasion. That was just side one.
Side two picked kicked off with one my my favourite songs by the band, "Walking on a Thin Line" that was more of a mid temp groove with a bit of edge. It's not the catchiest song on the album but there's something about it that still gets me in the feels. "Finally Found a Home" is another one of those great songs that flew under the radar. Musically the beginning always reminded me of "Children of the Night" by Survivor with the 12 string riff to start ... I know they aren't the same, it just conjures that feeling. This coming from a guy who admitted he can't hear "Ghost Busters" bass line - still, it's a great song.
As the second side played through I'd forgotten about a couple of the songs, particularly "You Crack Me Up" which was a bit of a misfire, and then the album's closer, Hank Williams "Honky Tonk Blues" that was more in the vein of "Bad is Bad" except it didn't suck. Not my favourite song on the album but it's an interesting wink and a nod to the past.
Sports was one of those divisive commercial records that was considered too slick and deliberately structured to have any artistic merit. Quite a few of my more musically serious friends loved to take shots at the band and the album as postcard examples of what happens when people don't know enough to know what they should like. For me I still liked Flesh for Lulu and Echo & the Bunnymen, and didn't see the problem with liking Huey. There were over a million uniformed buyers here in Canada, and another seven in the States ... they seemed to know what they liked, and I was one of them.
Comments
Post a Comment