I wanted to hear thoughts on Loverboy.http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7547#msg-7547Fri, 24 May 2013 12:54:20 +1000 Phorum 5.2.16 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7707#msg-7707 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7707#msg-7707
Regards

Susumu]]> Susumu NoticeboardThu, 26 Oct 2000 21:53:00 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7687#msg-7687 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7687#msg-7687 Hi bow wow NoticeboardThu, 26 Oct 2000 10:01:07 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7686#msg-7686 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7686#msg-7686 loo loo NoticeboardThu, 26 Oct 2000 09:56:23 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7665#msg-7665 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7665#msg-7665
I can't see what the fuss over Loverboy is. They were a good arena rock band. They put on a great show live. I could care less about their name.
]]> Big Bow Wow NoticeboardThu, 26 Oct 2000 01:47:18 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7645#msg-7645 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7645#msg-7645Don]]> Don NoticeboardWed, 25 Oct 2000 18:03:33 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7640#msg-7640 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7640#msg-7640
Lee Aaron
Tim Feehan
Frozen Ghost
Helix
Jester (Not The Jersey Band;actually from my hometown!)
Jett Black
Paul Janz
Sass Jordan
The Partland Bros.
Regatta (Pre Von Groove)
Saints & Sinners
Sheriff
Syre
T.O. Joker
Teaze
The Box
The Works (Pre Wall Of Silence)
Gino Vanelli
Von Groove
Wall Of Silence
Wrabit (Some members later formed Hanover Fist)


And I'm sure someone will add more : )

Tinger

]]> Tinger NoticeboardWed, 25 Oct 2000 14:38:36 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7630#msg-7630 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7630#msg-7630
-Moist (I love this band)
-The Tea Party (This is some VERY interesting stuff! Extremely unique.)
-Skydiggers
-Headpins/Darby Mills
-Triumph
-Toronto
-Coney Hatch
-Glass Tiger
-Boulevard
-Brighton Rock
-Santers
-Honeymoon Suite
-Haywire
-Aldo Nova
-Sebastian Bach
-Streetheart
-Pretty Rough (this is one that I brought up a few times)
-The Kings
-Hanover Fist (aka Hanover)

The obvious ones...
-Harem Scarem
-Loverboy
-Bryan Adams
-Shania Twain (!)
-Alanah Myles
-Alanis Morrissette (whom I absolutely LOATHE!)
-Barenaked Ladies

From the "Old School"...
-Prism (phenomenal, IMO, and an absolute necessity for any fan of AOR in the vein of Journey, Foreigner, Styx, Loverboy, etc.)
-Trooper
-April Wine
-Max Webster (Kim Mitchell's band before he went solo)

There were others (especially newer ones), but that' s all that's coming to mind right now. I have actually worked fairly hard at introducing some of my internet friends to Canadian bands. It's weird to me that our neighbors south of the border especially don't seem to be more familiar with some of the bands that are huge up here (like, the Tragically Hip, for example).

Btw, it's true what you've heard about Neil Peart's losses. He did, indeed, lose both his wife and daughter within a few months of each other. From what I understand, the band kind of got put on hold for a while. I believe that I've heard he's ready to make a comeback now, though. In fact, I believe I've read that he's engaged to be married. He certainly deserves some joy in his life, anyways.

Take care.
Don]]> Don NoticeboardWed, 25 Oct 2000 11:20:29 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7606#msg-7606 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7606#msg-76067th son
Kim Mitchell
Blue Rodeo
I Mother Earth
THe Tragically Hip...etc...

ANY ADDITIONS HERE that anyone would like to make...I was very fortunate to have a gracious Canadian friend send me a tape of misc. Canadian bands...which is fantastic...included many of the above artists and piqued my interest so much that I made several CD purchases...

I still believe to this day that RUSH has never received the recognition they deserve in the states...what is going on with them? I heard that Neil Peart lost both his wife and daughter in a matter of months...a tragic blow to a brilliant soul...
]]> loo loo NoticeboardWed, 25 Oct 2000 03:29:31 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7595#msg-7595 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7595#msg-7595
My opinion is that they were a good band with a bad singer. ]]> Captain Chaos NoticeboardWed, 25 Oct 2000 01:34:20 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7581#msg-7581 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7581#msg-7581
-It's absolutely true that their name and "the chick factor" earned them nothing but contempt from many guys back then. But Loverboy weren't the only ones. I remember when I went to high school, many guys lumped them in with the Journeys and Foreigners, and considered them to be lightweight radio fluff. In fact, I think that Journey was considered to be even more of a limpwristed blemish on the world of rock than Loverboy. “Open Arms” was especially hated. Real men in those daze listened to the much manlier AC/DC, Van Halen, Led Zep, Rush, et al.

-They probably were too popular for their own good. In the music business, it's often true that "the bigger they are, the harder they fall."

-They may have been a calculated, contrived slice of corporate rock, but they were also pretty talented musicians. And one of the things that I always liked about the band was Mike Reno's voice. I always thought of it as being much huskier than a lot of his peers' Steve Perry, Lou Gramm, etc. (But don't get me wrong, I am not slamming those other vocalists. In fact, Steve Perry is still among my all-time fave singers.) I totally agree about Mike Reno's not over-singing Loverboy's songs. He always gave an intense, inspired performance and did their material justice.

-Their first two albums still rock my world to this day. Now, as I've stated before, I cannot express how little I care about music sounding "dated." With me, I either like music or I don't. Whether or not the music sounds dated doesn't even enter into it. Tracks like "The Kid is Hot Tonight," "Turn Me Loose," "Gangs in the Street," "Jump," "Workin' for the Weekend," etc. are, IMO, among the catchiest tunz ever committed to tape. As many of you can probably tell, I am a fan of their earlier stuff. I began losing interest after album #2. It's not that I don't like their latter stuff, it's just that it didn't rock my world in the same way as their first two albums. I was especially turned off by their track, "Notorious." It REALLY seemed to me at the time like they had lost their edge and were trying to hard to write a radio hit.

-I know that tastes vary, and I'm fine with that. But I still have a hard time understanding how anyone who has heard their first two albums claiming that there's an abundance of filler on them (especially "Get Lucky"). To each their own, I guess.

-I can't help thinking that if these guys deserve to be playing in tiny little dives in the middle of nowhere, what the h*ll do a lot of the other bands from the '80s deserve?!

-I was highly disappointed with their "VI" album from a couple of years ago. I had high hopes, but it was one of the biggest wastes of money of that year ('98). The year before that, it had to be Keel's "VI - Back in Action." Hmmm, what is it about that Roman numeral?


The bottom line, IMO, is that any of you out there who haven't heard much from this band (and assuming that you are comfortable enough with your masculinity to not be put off by their name) owe it to yourselves to pick up at least something by them so you can judge for yourselves. I'd recommend either of their first two albums, or one of their G/H compilations. (Btw, of the three that I know of, I'd say "Classics" is their best.)

Well enough rambling. Besides, it's time to feel the dogsled team. Cheers all.
Don
]]> Don NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 16:48:00 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7574#msg-7574 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7574#msg-7574
Their first two albums are total AOR/MHR classics. The third album is very good. Lovin' Every Minute of It is just barely OK. Wildside was decent. VI sounded washed up and out.

Imagine for a minute that they had never achieved commercial success. Imagine that the first two albums were released in the US and were completely overlooked and that subsequent albums were only released on a limited basis in Canada. In this scenario, the AOR illuminati would be praising the band as Canada's best kept secret, their albums as lost treasures, their solo efforts as impossible to find pure gems, etc etc etc blah blah blah. Little AOR lemming goobers would be placing triple digit eBay bids on their crappiest and hardest to find disc simply because it would be a rarity.

I remember when they came out. I loved pop and rock in the early 80's. Their sound was absolutely perfect for the times. Calling them dated would be like calling Balance or Touch or Leroux dated. Loverboy doesn't sound any more or less early 80's than any other bands that came out at the same time. Turn Me Loose is still like the coolest song of the year. I saw them in concert in their heyday and they were excellent. They had the just about the best hooks in rock music at the time.

Their big problem is that they were popular. Their bigger problem is that they were very popular among the hot young teen-aged chicks that aroused guys of the time. They were a chick band. Many guys didn't like them because they liked Loverboy. They liked them to get laid. Why else would any self respecting hetero teenaged male buy some album with a dude's ass in red leather pants. Every guy who bought that album told everybody they knew that they either bought it for the music or for their girlfriends. My wife - another child of the same generation - had two copies of this album. Their concerts were like them old Beatles movies or Backstreet Boy concerts - packed with underaged teenage girls screaming so loudly that you couldn't hear a fucking thing. I can bet you that 90% of the chicks in Harley Hall at Shippensburg U had this album in their dorm room, and that roughly 50% had the album cover masking-taped to their walls. My wife has photos of her and her high school friends hanging around their tour bus when they came to her town.

Journey and Foreigner and Styx all had the excess popularity problem, too, but not to the same degree. Loverboy's popularity was from the cheerleader and majorette crowd, and that doomed them to perpetual disdain among many manly men. Ask the guys on this board what the worst songs were by those other three bands and the answers are sure to be Open Arms, Waiting For a Girl Like You, and Babe, respectively. Popularity kills, and ballads suck.

Loverboy kicked ass, but too many people let their testerone clog their ears and cloud their judgment. No self-respecting AOR lover should be without their first two albums.

Joe]]> Joe NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 11:43:29 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7572#msg-7572 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7572#msg-7572
"Hot Girls In Love" - need I say more?]]> F.O.R.D. NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 11:21:13 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7571#msg-7571 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7571#msg-7571 Kilzer NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 11:12:31 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7570#msg-7570 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7570#msg-7570
I heard somewhere Bon Jovi got trememdous influence from early Loverboy works.
Notorious is a nice collaboration work co-written by Richie Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi(with brilliant background chorus from both Bon Jovi guys).

They are great rockers and I hope they keep rockin'

Regards

Susumu]]> Susumu NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 11:01:19 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7568#msg-7568 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7568#msg-7568
Rogue
http://RogueCreations.tripod.com/]]> Rogue NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 09:55:01 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7565#msg-7565 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7565#msg-7565]]> DD Dave NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 09:41:38 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7564#msg-7564 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7564#msg-7564As for playing lounges, well that may be true but it doesn't weaken the strength
of their songs.]]> Carl NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 09:24:37 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7563#msg-7563 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7563#msg-7563 Stimpy NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 08:33:28 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7561#msg-7561 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7561#msg-7561]]> Gumby NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 07:45:59 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7554#msg-7554 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7554#msg-7554
Robert]]> Robert NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 06:23:34 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7553#msg-7553 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7553#msg-7553 Captain Chaos NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 06:20:13 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7551#msg-7551 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7551#msg-7551]]> Carl NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 05:37:44 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7549#msg-7549 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7549#msg-7549people are put off by the name. Ok that didn't stop them having great success in the 80's but how many times do you hear them mentioned on this board for example ?.
They had it all in abundance, great vocals, a fantastic guitarist ( listen to Paul Dean's solos any any song for a truly great melodic genius ), great keys and a brilliant rhythm section pumping out melodic rock gems.
All their albums are excellent but start with Keep It Up if you want to check them out.]]> Carl NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 05:33:55 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7548#msg-7548 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7548#msg-7548mike]]> mike NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 05:30:26 +1100 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7547#msg-7547 http://www.melodicrock.com/phorum52/read.php?1,7547,7547#msg-7547 Captain Chaos NoticeboardTue, 24 Oct 2000 04:24:40 +1100