Does Heart ever recover from the 80s?

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by ash006, Jul 12, 2018.

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  1. RickH

    RickH Connoisseur of deep album cuts

    Location:
    Raleigh, NC
    I thought "Bebe Le Strange" was a pretty solid effort and purchased it back in 1980 but I got off their bandwagon after that.
     
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  2. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Did Ozzy or Priest? :laugh:


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  3. Efus

    Efus Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    Heart- "the lean years"

    1980, BeBe LeStrange only goes gold, breaking a string of 4 straight platnium albums.
    In 1981, Heart headlined stadium dates in my part of the US.
    In 1982 touring on Private Audition, one of their worst selling albums, they did a co-headling tour with Kansas in large sports arenas.
    Passionworks 1983 yielded a minor hit How Can I Refuse? Both albums sell less than 500k.

    2 years later, 1985, they decided to bring in more songwriters (other than Ennis) they release Heart, get heavy play on MTV, and go 5x platnium.
    Next 2 albums go platnium as well.

    I'd submit, that the 80's except for a 2 year dip, were actually more successful for the band, versus how they were perceived and treated in the 70s.
     
  4. O Don Piano

    O Don Piano Senior Member

    I’m always suspicious of newer members who post inflammatory threads like this and then don’t participate in them.

    I liked the first 5 Heart albums; heard Private Audition at a party and didn’t think it was as bad as I’d read; I wasn’t a fan of the Big 80s in general- although I appreciated they were popular again. I did like These Dreams despite the drum machine and synths; saw the Wilson sisters in 1999 and was blown away!

    I hope for family’s sake they can patch things up.
     
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  5. vince

    vince Stan Ricker's son-in-law

    NO
    ONE
    recovers from
    THE '80 'S!!
     
  6. Morton LaBongo

    Morton LaBongo Forum Resident

    Location:
    Manchester NH
    That was pretty typical 1980s rock fashion though. It didn't stick out at the time as garish or lame, although I'd die laughing if I saw someone dressed like that now.
     
  7. Terrapin Station

    Terrapin Station Master Guns

    Location:
    NYC Man/Joy-Z City
    I like (and miss) garish personally.
     
  8. chervokas

    chervokas Senior Member

    You'd have to call the accountants, but my guess is yes. Sure, maybe they didn't get publishing royalties on "What About Love" or "These Dreams," etc but they got whatever contractual royalties and performance royalties they were due on sales, and they sold a ton of records at the time (and they publishing royalties on songs they did write that might have been on those albums when they sold). Heart went 5X platinum -- it sold as much at their two previous best selling albums combined; Bad Animals went 3X platinum; Brigade went 2X platinum. The era also gave them their only gold-certified single. They did pretty well in the mid '70s too, but the band's career was moribund and probably would have been a relatively minor one in history if the '80s power-ballad era of Heart never happened.
     
  9. RichC

    RichC Forum Resident

    Location:
    Charlotte, NC
    Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley: HOLD MY BEER.

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  10. Praveen

    Praveen Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atlanta
    i like their 70s stuff as good classic rock . i like their 80s pop rock stuff for what it was. ann elevated the rock ballad with her vocals. Alone would be an annoying song if sung by bon jovi
     
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  11. bRETT

    bRETT Senior Member

    Location:
    Boston MA
    All the bands who did the 80s makeover thing had a couple years of major success, then a quick commercial downfall with that same style, then wound up returning to their original style and basing their live shows on the pre-80s material. Heart, Chicago, Starship, Yes, Cheap Trick...Possible exception is Aermsmith who continue to own their 80s as well as their earlier successes.
     
    Last edited: Jul 12, 2018
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  12. Say It Right

    Say It Right Not for the Hearing Impaired

    Location:
    Niagara Falls
    Would say that the self-titled Heart holds up better than some of the territory mined by other veteran acts from the 70's during the mid to late 80's. Cheap Trick, anyone?
     
  13. Raunchnroll

    Raunchnroll Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Recover?? Was there some period I missed where they were not covered? Dang.
     
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  14. Veggie Boy

    Veggie Boy still trudgin'

    Location:
    Central Canada
    I'm with the "First Two Albums" club on this one.

    They coasted through the eighties and went into a decline thereafter.

    I think things picked up for them when they hooked up briefly with Jason Bonham.

    Further to that, their performance of Stairway to Heaven at the Kennedy Centre propelled them to Legend Status (more than they already were). One of the greatest live performances I ever saw. Funny how its not available on Youtube anymore. What-up-wit-dat?
     
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  15. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Compared to then-new bands like the Hair Metal acts and some of the "New Romantics", the look wasn't extreme.

    But as I mentioned, for a "legacy act" from the 60s or 70s, I think it was extreme.

    Not saying no one else from the 60s/70s went as "full 80s" as Heart, but I can't think of anyone!
     
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  16. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    Touche! :laugh:

    Big difference, though: Kiss already had an "extreme" look in the 70s. It's not like they went from being fairly ordinary looking to the clowns in that pic.

    They went from guys in one form of clown outfit to guys in another form of clown outfit.

    Heart went from "of the era" but still fairly normal to "mega-80s"!
     
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  17. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    Desire Walks On was sort of an attempt to get out of the Capitol entrapments of the 80s. OP might like that one.

    Personally I think Little Queen is the best album they ever made, but thats my opinion.

    Bebe Le Strange I liked, but probably because I worked a couple of shows on that tour and met them and they were a class act, very nice to work with. (well most of them anyway).
     
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  18. Stephen J

    Stephen J Forum Resident

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    Yes, what the OP is saying is like saying "will the Eagles ever recover from winning the Super Bowl?" or "will Barack Obama ever recover from being President for 8 years"?

    But if they were talking purely artistically, I guess getting elected to the RnR Hall of Fame answered that question.
     
  19. zen

    zen Senior Member

    I have 'em all...and Red Velvet Car would be the only one I'd recommend, confidently. It's actually enjoyable, for this long time fan.
     
  20. zen

    zen Senior Member

    No it does not. I wish it did. I didn't like the modern-metal vibe and the vocals lacked melody. Nothing 70's about it, IMO. Sorry.
     
  21. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    the whole 80s Heart thing is a bit of a mystery to me, there are wildly differing opinions and contexts, even from the Seattle people I met on the tour (band members who are no longer in the band, crew, some management, etc, for awhile I kept in touch with some of them).

    Ann gave me a long lecture on the Bebe tour about "sexism in male dominated arena rock" and how her and Nancy were on a crusade of sorts, to prove it and how they were NEVER going to sell it all out for cash or whatever.

    Couple of years later, their fortunes fall (Ann conveniently blames Epic for pushing Michael Jacksons Thriller and abandoning everything else, including Private Audition). They get dropped and apparently things arent going well. Capitol shows up and signs them but the devil is in the details. Some reports said they really just wanted Ann and the rest of them, even Nancy, could go stuff themselves but to her credit, Ann said no way to that. That may or may not be true at all.

    Anyway, Capitol gave them a large initial cash infusion but you guessed it, the contracts ended up more or less to be musical servitude. Not only were they ascribed outside writers but there were "promotion" clauses galore... in a sense, requiring them to go full core 80s and do the exact opposite of what Ann had promised they would never do... be sexpots for The Man. Check out that one 80s video of Nancy in a sexy corset, riding a horse and see if that isnt literally a crusade for sale.

    But the way I heard it told, it was either that, to continue in any sort of arena level, or start the slow slide down back to the clubs. There was also, in that time frame, a healthy new contingent of female hard rockers to contend with. Without Capitol's cash and promotion, they may well have slipped quickly into yesterdays news.

    So, sometimes I hear that music and I think, wow, that blows. And sometimes I think but you hadda do what you hadda do, just to keep the lights on.

    I dunno. Its dog eat dog at the top of the slag heap, they all tell me that.....
     
  22. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA
    yeah, Jupiters Darling isnt 70s Heart with Fisher and Leese giving up the blistering guitar leads. Jupiters Darling doesnt even have anybody on board who could deliver that. A big yawner, to me, but that is just my opinion.
     
  23. Veggie Boy

    Veggie Boy still trudgin'

    Location:
    Central Canada
    Can I address the elephant in he room? and this is coming from an overweight person.

    Starting in the early eighties Ann Wilson kind of ballooned up. She wasn't as attractive as she once was. At least as far as record execs (and a lot of fans) were concerned. Wasn't she even dropped by Pepsi Cola for getting too big?

    Ann is great and powerful singer but the eighties were about image.

    just sayin' :hide:
     
  24. manxman

    manxman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Isle of Man
    A lot of people claim that the Grateful Dead never made a consistently great studio album: I strongly disagree but I think that’s entirely true of Heart. Even their two best albums, Dreamboat Annie and Little Queen contain some filler, and oddly both sag in exactly the same place: the first half of side two. Dog And Butterfly didn’t have the same low points, but it didn’t have quite as many high points either, and all subsequent albums have been quite mixed in terms of quality. That said, Heart never issued a studio album that didn’t contain at least something of excellence – even Bad Animals, which I consider their worst, has a great opening double whammy of “Who Will You Run To?” and “Alone”. But more to the point, I’ve never encountered a live recording of Heart that I didn’t love.
     
  25. Wombat Reynolds

    Wombat Reynolds Jimmy Page stole all my best riffs.

    Location:
    Atlanta, GA, USA

    hell even the band was concerned. Leese BEGGED her to lose weight. There was one tour, I cant remember which one, where the band started playing behind a curtain then when the curtain went up... the crowd would GASP when they saw how big Ann was getting.

    Look at a lot of those band pics.. Ann is in back in many of them. Capitol made double sure to prop up Nancy as the promo sexpot.
     
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