Old Enough to Forget

Released in '85 this was an album that marked the end of Nick's initial run. Between 1977 and 1981 he dropped an album a year and was signed with Chrysalis and then Casablanca Records before taking a four year break and resurfacing with this self titled effort on RCA. Gone was his longtime writing partner and guitarist James McCulloch. All that remained was his bass player Eric Nelson who was still holding down the bottom end. Nick did pull together some stellar musicians, from Mr. Mister's Pat Mastelotto on drums, to Mitchell Fromm on keyboards. The two guitar players, Jeff Silverman and Steve (Psycho) Sykes are pretty solid and there are some tasty licks to be heard. I remember CFOX playing a track from this album ... once, and my memory is really fuzzy on this. I keep confusing a memory of them playing Giuffria's "Call To The Heart" with whatever song they played by Nick Gilder. The common thread is both songs sounded like they were sung by Steve Perry. I a...

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 ...