By the late seventies Rick Springfield was in a state of desperation. At this point he's released 3 studio albums with middling success and is maybe a teen idol past his prime. Even though music is his passion, bills have to be paid, so he auditions for an acting role on General Hospital, the soap of the time and got the job.
Meanwhile he signed with RCA and started making another record in earnest, newly inspired by the power pop guitar crunch that prevailed the LA clubs at the time, so by 1981, the guy is starring a top show "General Hospital" and at the very same time, nis new album came out and his latest single "Jessie's Girl" began to earn radio play and support from a newly channel called MTV. The song ultimately hits #1 on the Billboard chart.
The album proved to be a good choice, one of their most consistent and powered of his career, across its 10 song, there were no waste, all of them were good, with a killer hook and potentially single, of course every song talked about girls (business as usual for Rick). and the sound since the 1970s, bands overtly influenced by that early Beatles sound and song construction were filed directly into the category that came to be known as power pop indeed there was something about this particular sound that struck a chord with hardcore music nerds. It was pop, but self-referential and smart and clever, with guitars all over it.The result was romantic music for boys, so, practically this sort of sound covered Rick's lyrics and that was it, Rick wrote nine of the whole ten pack. The one track he didn’t write was a Sammy Hagar tune dated from 1978, "I've Done Everything For You" which Rick took on it's own.
A sort of mid-romantic album to enjoyed it while driving in your car between 7-11 late at night, or cruising the road somehow shomewhere, the first 8 tracks were hook laden pocket anthems and each one to the last features an impossibly infectious chorus. "Jessie's Girl" was a truly rockin' piece of ear candy off the album has begun picking up steam on the radio, and it’s corresponding video is soon all over MTV. The song ultimately hits #1 on the Billboard chart, then the hardest "Love Is Alright Tonite" a merely intense and fascinating succesful tune, "Daddy's Pearl" a clever and weird tune at the same time, the lusty ballad "Inside Silvia", full of metaphors indeed, and of the experimental "Red Hot And Blue Love" to mention the most interesting tunes from the pack.
