The never were hits keep on comin'...
As they did on Volume 2 of the series, Renaissance Records goes deep into the Sony/CBS (and affiliated labels) tape library to assemble a collection of little known songs they call Heard It On The Radio Volume 3. While eleven of the songs made the Rock Tracks chart, only two of the eighteen songs on the album crossed over to the Billboard's Hot 100 and only one fought its way into the Top 40. All songs were singles or album tracks from 1975-1985. Somewhat surprisingly, HERC counts three of the songs (including the two Hot 100 tracks) as ones he had heard on the radio before this CD came into the fold:
There are a few New Wavish tracks here which seem out of place amidst the mostly MOR offerings but they could be worth a second listen. The parent albums of those songs are pictured below:
Also of note are two projects by artists whose "day-job" bands were on hiatus at the time:
- Orion The Hunter featured guitarist Barry Goudreau and vocalist Fran Cosmo from the never-known-to-be-prolific, quality over quantity band, Boston
- Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, that group's only constant member since their formation in 1965, moonlighted with 10cc guitarist Rick Finn on an album of mostly insturmentals with the exception of this disc's "Lie For A Lie" which featured vocals from Mason's Floydian bandmate David Gilmour - the rare exteneded version of that song is below:
At first glance, Volume 3 seems to be the weakest of the series thus far but upon a closer listen, it actually equals the other two volumes in breadth and depth of song selection. This disc proves that seeing the title, artist name or photo may evoke no memories but hearing the songs just might do the trick.
title | artist | year | label | Hot 100 | Rock | |
1 | Doctors Of The Universe | DNA | 1983 | Boardwalk | ||
2 | Marseilles | Angel City | 1978 | Epic | ||
3 | Edge Of Sundown | Danny Joe Brown Band | 1981 | Epic | 12 | |
4 | Fallen Angel | Rogue | 1975 | Epic | ||
5 | So You Ran | Orion The Hunter | 1984 | Portrait | 58 | 7 |
6 | Maybe It's You | Great Buildings | 1981 | Columbia | 48 | |
7 | The Look In Your Eye | Hughes/Thrall | 1982 | Boulevard | 28 | |
8 | Rock And Roll Dreams Come Through | Jim Steinman | 1981 | Epic | 32 | 14 |
9 | What's Right | David Werner | 1979 | Epic | ||
10 | Out Of My Hands | Face To Face | 1984 | Epic | 55 | |
11 | It's All Right, It's O.K. | The Hawks | 1981 | Columbia | 32 | |
12 | She Sheila | The Producers | 1982 | Portrait | 48 | |
13 | Strange Dreams | Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush | 1982 | Columbia | 9 | |
14 | She Talks In Stereo | Gary Myrick & The Figures | 1980 | Epic | ||
15 | Lie For A Lie | Nick Mason & Rick Finn | 1985 | Columbia | 21 | |
16 | Make Time For Love | Trillion | 1980 | Epic | ||
17 | I'm Leaving | Taxxi | 1982 | Fantasy | 39 | |
18 | Rock It Out | Pia Zadora | 1983 | Curb |
I have both the Steinman and Face To Face tracks in my library. The others did not ring any bells. I need to go online to see if any of those sound familiar.
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