Aldo Nova - Aldo Nova

Aldo Nova seemed to come out of nowhere in the spring of '82. "Fantasy" didn't sound like anything else at the time - it was rock, wrapped in new wave structure, with searing guitars and layers of synths. If this was the future of rock, count me in. Throughout the album, Aldo's frenetic guitar playing was paired with a singing voice that at times seemed too thin to pull off the songs, but Aldo didn't seem to care and he went for it ... all in, baby. The album went double platinum on both sides of the border, and suddenly there was a new kid in town (suck it, Glenn Frey).

To the uninitiated, Aldo Nova is remembered as a one-hit wonder - if he's remembered at all. Not everyone fell off the bandwagon after his debut, as his next record, Subject, would go platinum in Canada and gold in the US. However, by his third album, Twitch, an album that still went gold in Canada, there were a lot more empty seats on the wagon. His career trajectory may have gone in the wrong direction, but those diminished returns were still golden.

Aldo Nova has more in common with a box of salt than you'd expect. A pinch here and a dash there and everything tastes better. Too much and you'll find yourself looking for a bucket. As a kid I was tricked into downing a teaspoon of salt, so I'm not kidding about the bucket. Don't ask. Let's just say my picture used to be in the dictionary beside the word gullible. Same with this record: in small doses, this is awesome ... after a few songs in a row ... not so much. Even now, after all this time, I tend to think of this as a classic album.

The reason boils down to one spectacular song. "Fantasy." A holy shit song if there ever was one. This is the song that introduced Aldo Nova to the world. What an introduction. It is also hands down the best song on the album. There were others, too, that were so good. "Foolin' Yourself," to me, was a close second. Why it didn't crack the top 40 is a mystery to me. Everything about this song just screams awesome.

Aldo seemed to be carving out a niche and creating something new, but he resorted to a tried and true formulaic approach on the album's two big ballads. "Ball and Chain" and "Can't Stop Lovin' You" are musically killer power ballads. Aldo isn't holding back, and he throws everything he has at the wall here - the problem isn't the songs themselves, it's Aldo. His voice just doesn't have the power and range to pull these off. For fun, I like to imagine Lou Gramm or Steve Perry singing these. Heck, Celine knew he could write, and she'd capitalize on his formula to great success many years later. The only song on the album that seemed to be out of place was "Under the Gun," an oddly reconstituted cannibalized interpolation of "Fantasy" that was so similar in structure it's distracting.

Listening now, I get my ambivalence. There are some good songs, but if you look at this track by track, the math doesn't add up. It's that intangible feeling that keeps pulling me back. When Aldo stays in his lane, the songs are slick and effective, and they carry a lot of weight.

As a kid, I assumed everyone loved this record, so it was interesting to stumble (not really, I went looking) upon J.D. Considine's especially savage 1982 Rolling Stone review of the album. It was given a single star and accompanied by this bit of vitriolic prose:

"Ultimately, Nova's reedy, whiny voice is his undoing. Unable to match his sound effects with the melodramatic bellowing they demand, Nova fails even by the limited standards dictated by his hard-pop approach."

While it would seem we both have issues with Aldo's vocal range and prowess, in my mind this is a classic album. This is the record that made me a fan. It's why I bought his next album, and the one after that ... and the ones after that ... I have them all, it's been a bumpy ride at times, but I'm still on the bandwagon.

The reality versus the fantasy is that this is a better memory than it is a listening experience at times, but dagnabbit, when Aldo is good he is so good that it makes up for any shortcomings.

As he so adeptly stated all those years ago, "Life is just a fantasy" and that is my reality.

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 , ...

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