Huey Lewis and The News - Sports (1983) MFSL (1987)
| QUOTE: | There was life for Huey Lewis and Sean Hopper when their first band became a no-leaf Clover-pardon the pun. Together with bassist Mario Cippolina, drummer Bill Gibson, and lead guitarist Chris Hayes, Huey and friends got into journalism, well, Huey Lewis and the News actually, and they created their biggest headlines with Sports, their tertiary 1983 album, which yielded four Top Ten hits, yet somehow or other, I managed to hear all songs from Sports, making this one of my all-time favourite news... I mean classics.
Sports takes what they improved on in Picture This, their tried mixture of soul and doo-wop harmonies, but with a lot of radio-friendly zing! "The Heart of Rock & Roll" is a paean to the risqu , rowdy, and sensationalistic night life of big cities like New York, where one can do "half a million things at a quarter to three." Part of the song's chorus-"now the old boy may hardly be breathing" may be a reflection of the cul-de-sac rock music had gone through at the time, but leave it to Huey and the boys to give it a strong jolt in the arm-aww yeah! The second of three singles to reach #6, and love that heartbeat-like drum that opens and closes this classic number!
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The first single from Sports was "Heart and Soul," penned by Nicky Chinn and Blondie-songmeister and producer Mike Chapman, which alternates between some easygoing keyboards from Sean Hopper and some snarling grinding hard-edged guitar chops from Hayes. This became their second Top Ten hit, peaking at #8.
"Bad Is Bad," a 50's blues-tinged doo-wop number, yielded a video, yet didn't crack the Top 100. Bad is given both connotations, cool re the cousin who plays his guitar with a chainsaw buzz, and tasteless regarding a man finding a note reading "I love you" and "someone else's shoes, underneath my bed."
For sheer energy, how can one beat "I Want A New Drug?" This search of a new panacea instead of those pharmaceutical nightmares or under-the-counter pills celebrities pop, indicate a criticism of the pharmaceutical industry but also of Hollywood itself perhaps. Lewis later sued Ray Parker Jr. for cribbing the rhythm of this for "Ghostbusters." I do detect some similarity between the songs, but fortunately, the matter was settled out of court so there wasn't a repeat of George Harrison vs the Chiffons.
The fifth single, "Walking on a Thin Line," reached #18, begins with a pulsing high-tech sounding bassline which becomes the backbone of the song, before going into a rocking song of frustration about an ex-veteran, and the scarring aftereffects of war.
I remember the mid-paced doowop rock with a tinge of beach harmonies, and third #6 single, "If This Is It," from the video on MTV, and both video and song paralleled, of a guy fed up of the relationship games being played. At least the video had a happy ending, as a nice-looking blonde who had witnessed the scene between Huey and the woman in question, wordlessly invites the dejected guy to walk along the beach with her.
The boisterous "You Crack Me Up," with its running synth line, harmony backups, rapid-fire delivery from Lewis, and neat Hayes guitars makes this the best non-single of this album. I bet they could've released this as a followup to "Walking on a Thin Line" and made another Top Ten single.
Their cover of Hank Williams' "Honky Tonk Blues" is a great pub rock tune complete with John McFee on steel guitar that rounds off the album. |
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