Published on Nov 9, 1998
For each and every musician who becomes a superstar, there is
that one moment or one album where their future becomes crystal
clear. For Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, that moment was his fourth
album
Reckless, released in 1984.
Sure, Adams had experienced some minor success with such songs
as “This Time” and “Cuts Like A Knife”. But his undeniable charm,
his knack of writing pop-driven hits and his capitalization on the
music video all equalled one thing: superstar. Even today, 14 years
after this album was released, it still is a lot of fun to listen
to.
While many of these songs were overplayed in their heyday (MTV
had a particular affinity towards “Heaven,” which was my least
favorite of the singles), once you’ve had a chance to step back and
listen to them in the context of this album, everything seems to
fall right into place. From the opening power chords of “One Night
Love Affair,” Adams proves that he’s firing on all cylinders
musically, and with only one or two exceptions, the entire trip is
a smooth one.
Two songs from
Reckless may now be noteworthy because of their appearance
on the 1988 disc
Live! Live! Live! (which we reviewed here some time ago),
“She’s Only Happy When She’s Dancin'” and “Kids Wanna Rock”. Of the
two, the latter track stands out for its energy level, while “She’s
Only Happy…” just doesn’t seem to hold the power as well. Still,
it’s not a bad track, just not one that I would have selected as
one to remember years down the line.
Then, there are the singles. “Heaven,” in retrospect, isn’t that
bad of a ballad, but when I was force-fed the song every fifteen
friggin’ minutes, it got real old, real quick. (One version of the
video, the one where Adams was playing to an audience of TV sets,
seemed a little too artsy-fartsy for me as a 14-year-old.) The
first singles, “Run To You” and “Somebody,” are still a lot of fun
to listen to, as is the mega-hit “Summer Of ’69”. (To this day, I
honestly can’t believe that the censors at MTV and radio stations
let a line like “Me and my baby in ’69” by. Think about it for a
minute.) However, one song that has been lost in the mix over time
was “It’s Only Love,” a duet with Tina Turner (whose fates had
turned for the better around the same time). This proves to be an
excellent track, and the pairing of Adams and Turner sounds quite
natural.
So, that leaves us with two tracks on
Reckless: “Long Gone” and “Ain’t Gonna Cry”. While these
aren’t terrible efforts, there is a good reason why these songs
never really caught people’s attention or piqued radio’s interest.
Surprisingly, these are the only tracks that seem to show some
level of their age.
Oh, sure, you could settle for picking up the best-of
So Far, So Good, and leave off the “unmentionables”.
However, if you do that, I think you lose a lot of the impact that
these songs really have. Listening to them with all the other songs
that radio beat to death kind of takes away some of their impetus;
it’s almost like watering them down.
Reckless, as an album, is a real experience, and it’s one
that is worth going through, even if that does mean sitting through
a few songs that don’t light your fire. (It’s not that long of an
album, for Crissakes.) I don’t often pull
Reckless out of the Pierce Memorial Archives, but when I do
dust off my cassette, I have yet to not enjoy listening to it.
The drawback to this album, of course, was the question of how
Adams would follow up his smash success. It could be argued that
he’s never quite approached that level of success (although the
power of “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)” could blunt that
argument), but it can’t be argued that
Reckless was the album that made Adams a household name. I
also think it’s his best effort to date.