themusicaddict: themusicaddict's Greatest CDs of All-Time" Loverboy's "Keep It Up" (Updated February 4th, 2015)

Tuesday, February 3, 2015

themusicaddict's Greatest CDs of All-Time" Loverboy's "Keep It Up" (Updated February 4th, 2015)

Hello,

As I continue working on the greatest songs of all-time blog, now with about 3,000 to 4,000 songs, I listen to as much music I can for each musician I'm focusing on that at that time. I'll be breaking down all of Loverboy's greatest songs of all-time in two blogs. This is part 1 and later I'll publish Part 2. I count a combined 27 songs for greatest songs of all-time by Loverboy. Since I love every song on "Keep It Up", I'll put all those songs on this one blog.

Sometimes I find a lot of cool music, great songs by an artist that I had never heard before. I'm a sap for 80's music and I love synth music as much as anyone else. I've often made the joke that you can tell an 80's movie by all the synth music. Some of these memories are coming back to me as this is the 30th anniversary of graduating from high school. Now that's old.

Well one of those bands that featured a lot of synth in their music is the Canadian rock band Loverboy. Loverboy made their first entrance in the national consciousness with their first CD, 1980's self-titled CD. "Loverboy" was released March 28th, 1980. I wasn't thrilled by "Turn Me Loose", but I loved "The Kid Is Hot Tonight" immediately:

Gee, I can't tell is Mike Reno lip synching? Over the years I've got to the point where I quite like "Turn Me Loose". The next best song on that CD was "Always On My Mind", but after that song the rest of the CD is basically filler.

This was in a much different time. People listened to music mostly through radio, record albums and cassette tapes. Either you had to own a copy or have a friend who owned a hard copy of a tape or album to listen to a specific piece of music. You couldn't listen to music on your phone, no Rdio, no Spotify, no iTunes, no Youtube- in other words no music buffet like there is now. (How incredible is it now that almost anyone can listen to any piece of music now for free.) However it does seem that radio was a lot better back then, more music and less commercials. Radio now is nearly unlistenable with the constantly nattering DJs and corporate radio run amuck.

It was also a different time in release schedules. Currently most musicians take 3 or 4 years between CDs. Back in the early 80s Loverboy released three CD's in four years time. There's a lot of classic music on those 3 CDs also. (Of course no one can top the hard working Creedence Clearwater Revival's hectic 1969, in that single year alone they released 3 albums. Those 3 albums contain the majority of their hits.)

So although it was 18 months later, it was still the next year when Loverboy released their second CD, "Get Lucky". It was released on October 7th, 1981. "Get Lucky" is a deeper CD, it had a few more great songs than their first release. The best songs on "Get Lucky" are "Working For The Weekend", "When It's Over", "Gangs In The Street" and "Take Me To The Top".

"Get Lucky" marked maturity for Loverboy and it lead to probably their greatest CD. "Keep It Up" is definitely a themusicaddict greatest CD of all-time. That CD was released on November 8th, 1983. Loverboy had at least one or two great songs on each of their first few CDs, however every song on "Keep It Up" is great. There's not a weak track in the bunch.

The key members of this band at the release of this CD were Mike Reno, Paul Dean, Doug Johnson, Scott Smith and Matt Frenette. They were able helped by Nancy Nash, Maggie Ryder and Jean Piche, who plays the synthesizer. I'm quite surprised by how little live music is available for Loverboy on Youtube.

"Hot Girls In Love" (This model has a very 80's look.):