An Album A Day #8: Loverboy's LOVERBOY [1980]

HERC first witnessed the sight and sound of Loverboy on Saturday, February 21, 1981 (he didn't remember the date so he looked it up), when they appeared on American Bandstand. They performed "Turn Me Loose" and "The Kid Is Hot Tonite" that morning. Imagine his surprise when he heard the awesome full-length album intro to "Turn Me Loose" for the first time a few weeks later when he bought the album.

It wasn't until 2012 when HERC broke down and bought the promo 12" vinyl single for the song, that he came to own the forever incomplete single edit of the song.

Speaking of the band's sound, the rocking guitar riffs, jumpy new wavey keyboards, and a danceable rhythm section set them apart from other groups of the day. "Turn Me Loose" was HERC's jam and "The Kid Is Hot Tonite" wasn't too far behind.

The album almost wasn't released here in the United States as executives passed on it the first time around. Multi-platinum sales in Canada forced them to reconsider and soon the album went multi-platinum in the States as well on the strength of its two singles. Album tracks "Prissy Prissy" and "Teenage Overdose" were the respective b-sides to "Turn Me Loose" and "The Kid Is Hot Tonite", both of which charted on the Hot 100 and the Mainstream Rock charts.

When the band released Get Lucky, their second album, in October 1981, HERC bought it on vinyl and proceeded to record his first and only 8-track mixtape, a compilation of Loverboy's first and second albums.