09/22/2024
ON THIS DATE (41 YEARS AGO)
September 15, 1983 – Huey Lewis & The News: Sports is released.
# ALL THINGS MUSIC PLUS+ 4.5/5
# Allmusic 4.5/5 stars
Sports is the third album by Huey Lewis and the News, released on September 15, 1983. It reached #1 on the Billboard 200 Top LP's chart and features five Billboard Hot 100 hits - "Heart and Soul" ( #8), "I Want a New Drug" ( #6), "The Heart of Rock & Roll" ( #6), "If This Is It" ( #6), and "Walking on a Thin Line" ( #18).
After two mildly successful, vaguely new-wave albums, Bay Area bar band Huey Lewis and the News (several of whose members had backed Elvis Costello on My Aim is True) hooked up with mega-selling producer Mike Chapman and released 1983's Sports. The album dominated both AM and FM radio throughout 1984, aligning it with Thriller, Purple Rain, She's So Unusual, and Madonna's early singles as definitive pop music of its era.
Sports is genial frat-boy rock at its finest. Singles "The Heart of Rock and Roll," "Heart and Soul," "I Want a New Drug," and "If This is It" comprise half of the album, and these songs have stood up to repeated listens. Hearing Sports today, the album still sounds surprisingly fresh, all the more remarkable when one considers how poorly other hits of the day have fared.
ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW
Wed Journey-style AOR fodder to bar-band blues, and two products are possible: tough, inventive rock & roll with arena-sized power, or plodding, unconvincing music drawn out by aimless soloing. This Bay Area quintet offers not enough of the former and way too much of the latter.
Lewis' pleasantly raspy blues voice gets a good workout on Mike Chapman and Nick Chinn's gutty "The Heart and Soul." But a fancy-pants sax solo and some moronic lyrics sabotage the spirited "Heart of Rock & Roll" (it's still kicking, says Huey), which should have ended a minute and a half earlier.
More annoying is "Walking on a Thin Line," wherein Lewis even sings "desperation" just like Men at Work's Colin Hay. The tune's a semistomper but is saddled with some repellent lines about a Vietnam serviceman–"I'm the boy next door/The one you find so easy to ignore/Is that what I was fighting for?"–that equate military service with Getting the Girl. And while Dave Edmunds tomahawked Lewis' own "Bad Is Bad" on Repeat When Necessary, Huey's chops come up short on this slow, syndrum version.
Fans of the Tubes' "She's a Beauty" will recognize the central guitar riff of "I Want a New Drug"; everyone else will catch the "Purple Haze" quotation in the ceaseless solo that wraps things up. And while "If This Is It" uncovers some pop abilities in the boys, it sounds too much like Orleans. Sports shows Huey Lewis and the News still a few bricks shy of a load. (RS 414)
~ Christopher Connelly (February 2, 1984)
TRACKS:
Side one
1 The Heart of Rock & Roll (Johnny Colla, Huey Lewis) - 5:03
2 Heart and Soul (Mike Chapman, Nicky Chinn) - 4:13
3 Bad Is Bad (Call, Ciambotti, Hopper, Lewis, McFee, Schriener)
4 I Want a New Drug (Chris Hayes, H. Lewis) - 4:46
Side two
1 Walking on a Thin Line (Andre Pessis, Kevin Wells) - 5:11
2 Finally Found a Home (B. Brown, C. Hayes, H. Lewis) - 3:43
3 If This Is It (J. Colla, H. Lewis) - 3:54
4 You Crack Me Up (Mario Cipollina, H. Lewis) - 3:42
5 H***y Tonk Blues (Hank Williams) - 3:26
