Corey Hart - First Offense

My goodness how time flies. Corey Hart may be best known for his breakthrough hit “Sunglasses at Night,” but up here in Canada this young man went on a tear, releasing one great album after another. As the ‘80s came to a close his commercial momentum started to wane, someone forgot to tell me - I kept picking up his stuff right through to Jade in 1998. I can’t believe this record came out in 1983. That makes it over forty friggin’ years old.

I've written about a couple of his other albums but it was fun going back to the beginning, there was something about this album that just worked. Here was a guy who was all of 21 when it came out, writing all the words and music himself. And somehow he even managed to get Eric Clapton to play dobro on “Jenny Fey.” Goodness, how bloody cool is that? Cool. It was just cool.

I don’t think the folks at Aquarius Records had any idea what they had when they first released First Offense. The album started to break, and even a non-album single, “Lamp at Midnite” (a clever re-imagining of “One Thing Leads to Another” by The Fixx), was getting airplay. I actually didn't know that at the time because “Lamp at Midnite” was on the copy I used to have. Aquarius Records apparently swapped out “Don’t Keep Your Heart” and added the single to capitalize on the momentum of their new artist. When the album hit the US market, it included the extended version of “Sunglasses at Night” and dropped “Araby (She’s Just a Girl)” to keep it at 10 tracks.

It was a nice surprise to find a vinyl copy that turned out to be an original pressing. Cool. "Don't Keep Your Heart" is an okay song but I do kind of miss “Lamp at Midnite,” but that’s what my CD and streaming are for. For the record (and yes, that pun is intended), I still prefer the tighter 3:58 version of “Sunglasses at Night.” No padding, no filler, all killer, goodness that Andy Barnett could play.

Goodness me, that was a lot of pointless preamble meanderambling. Oh well. It’s hard to explain just how good “Sunglasses at Night” was when it dropped. The stereo separation on the synths was incredible, the song just oozed attitude, and the guitars were smoking. And as music videos were just becoming a thing, the video sealed it—the sunglasses, the pout, the swagger. He was packaged and ready to take over the world. At least Canada, but he still managed three RIAA gold records in a row in the US. No small feat.

Musically, it was a new twist on familiar musical ideas. Corey Hart was blending European new wave with rock and roll, and the result felt fresh - sometimes unlike anything else on the radio. In those early days he still carried rock credibility, even touring in Canada with fellow Aquarius label-mates April Wine as an opening act. Meanwhile, his polished AOR-with-an-edge sound was catching on fast.

Now I may be giving the impression of a gushing goomba, but I wasn’t exactly a huge fan when this came out. His pout and vocal affectations were easy to mock back then, but over time the backlash faded. Even now I can still feel traces of that old bias, but I’m also more aware of just how unusually good this is. Make no mistake this is really good, excellent at times. "Sunglasses at Night" is still amazing to hear cranked.

Corey Hart was maybe twenty when the album was completed, and twenty-one when it came out. This isn’t someone tentatively taking first steps - it’s a young artist who knew exactly what he wanted to do and, for a first offense, he basically threw the book at us.