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Big Ones

Loverboy - Big Ones Audio CD

A fair review of the Loverboy "Big Ones" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Loverboy reviews here, or go back to the Loverboy tabs.

Band: Loverboy
Title: Big Ones
Rating:

Release Date: 1989-10-11
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Working for the Weekend 2: For You 3: Kid Is Hot Tonite 4: Lovin' Every Minute of It 5: Lucky Ones 6: Hot Girls in Love 7: This Could Be the Night 8: Ain't Looking for Love 9: Turn Me Loose 10: Notorious 11: When It's Over 12: Too Hot 13: Take Me to the Top 14: Heaven in Your Eyes

A very good best of.
I have to tell that there is a few songs I never heard before (fillers ?) Overall, this cd contains the essential and it is a very good album. This is a good "best of" and contains all I need from the band, all the hits (the big ones) and more. God, that was more than twenty years ago !.

Great compilation from a now underrated band
After their hit making days were over, classic rock stations would provide an outlet for them and would in effect make their music timeless. During the peak of arena rock in the late-70's through the mid-80's, bands that were on the cusp of stardom for several years such as Styx, Journey, and REO Speedwagon, would finally get their just due as their albums would spawn several hit singles as well as successful tours. However, when programming directors were assembling their playlists, a few bands would fall through the cracks. One of the best bands was Loverboy, a hard rock quintet from Canada. Led by their talented and photogenic singer Mike Reno, the band were all over the radio during the first half of the 1980's as albums such as Get Lucky and Keep It Up would be enormously successful. Their sound, which equally balanced synthesizer and guitar, produced a string of hit singles that were accessible to both pop and hard rock music fans. Sadly, their music is rarely heard these days and outside of their native Canada, they've become almost a footnote in music history. Released in 1989, Big Ones contains most of their hit singles and shows why Loverboy has become the most underrated band of the arena rock era.

Right from the memorable synth hook of the opening track "Working for the Weekend", the band's catchy sound is on full display. This track has become their signature song, like "Tom Sawyer" is to Rush, and is one of the best songs of the era. The hit singles "Turn Me Loose", "Hot Girls in Love", and "Lovin' Every Minute of It" are all great hard rock songs complete with memorable hooks. Lesser hits such as "Lucky Ones" and "Notorious" rock a little harder but are just as catchy. The band also had a knack for the power ballad, the best one being "When It's Over", a track that is passionate without being cheesy. The huge hits "This Could Be the Night" and "Heaven in Your Eyes" come off sounding like prom themes and are an acquired taste. The lesser known singles "Take Me to The Top" and "The Kid Is Hot Tonite" are also very good. Like a lot of greatest hits albums, previously unreleased songs were also added to the collection. However, the tracks "For You", "Ain't Looking For Love", and "Too Hot" are all very good and on par with their hits. Although the band would later release another compilation with more tracks called Loverboy Classics in 1994, it's not as consistent as Big Ones. In closing, Big Ones is an outstanding compilation from one of the best arena rock bands of the 1980's.
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A good compilation plus three new songs
"For You" and "Too Hot" are great songs that you won't find elsewhere. While Loverboy Classics has more good songs on it, this CD has three songs recorded with their late 80s lineup. A lot of good songs are not on this CD, so if you really love Loverboy you need to get Classics, Temperature's Rising (which has 7 songs not on Classics) and this CD, or else just buy every recording Loverboy ever made, because all have great songs on them.

Not bad collection of Canadian hard rockers
When it comes down a definitive single by them "Turn Me Loose" is definitely a candidate, with its pulsing bass, chugging guitar, and the hunger apparent in Mike Reno's voice when he says "I gotta do it my way or no way at all" which more or less sums up the fierce mindset of the protagonist. Canadian rock during the 80's: there's Bryan Adams, Rush, Glass Tiger, and the Toronto-founded Loverboy.

The other is the hard-hitting guitar and synth workout of the anthemic "Working For The Weekend" from Get Lucky, of which this is the best single from one of their best albums. Three other songs from this album are the hard rock hoochie-coo of "Lucky Ones," the pounding "When It's Over" and the not-too impressive "Take Me To The Top. "

Of the songs that I heard when I became aware of them, the first one, "Lovin' Every Minute Of It" and its pounding tribal rhythms, synths and chanting, sported some backing vocals that make it sound more like Def Leppard. Yes, the song was written by a certain Robert "Mutt" Lange, although it lacks the lustre of his later works, it does have his signature. The other single from the Lovin' Every Minute Of It album, the synth ballad "This Could Be The Night," was clearly trying to capitalize on Reno's duet with Heart's Ann Wilson on "Almost Paradise" (not on this compilation) and made the group sound more like Foreigner. Still a memorable ballad. And as if that weren't enough, they repeated the formula on their contribution to Top Gun, "Heaven In Your Eyes," which is the best of the hard rock ballads, what with the hard-hitting power vocals and guitars in the chorus.

"Notorious" from their last studio album, was quite a kicker, produced as it was by Bruce Fairbairn and co-written by Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora. Their last stab at greatness was enhanced by a video featuring a bevy of beauties representing girls who were "every mother's nightmare, every schoolboy's dream. " Although I find the belted wish of "I want to be your slave" a bit demeaning.

The Bob Rock-produced "For You" and "Ain't Looking For love" are harder-edged numbers with more emphasis on guitar and power vocals in the chorus. Ditto for "The Kid Is Hot Tonite," from their first album, is what the early Cars would sound like if they had the hard-driving guitars in the chorus. The keyboards could easily fit on a Cars album. Mike Reno's intense vocals and Paul Dean's hard guitars encapsulated the power formula of Loverboy, and what made it work. After that, it was a matter of whether the song itself was good.

The exclusion of "Dangerous" from Lovin' Every Minute Of It or "Almost Paradise" might make this incomplete to some. Still, a worthy compilation of a band that in a timely manner broke up right at the end of the 80's, leaving behind one brand of 80's hard rock.

4 1/2 stars--fine summary of band's career
While they weren't my very favorite, they were up there enough for me to have all of their old albums on cassette. Loverboy was one of the many fun hard rock bands of the 1980s. I got this collection when it came out in 1989 simply to have most of their hits on CD. To me, it is still the best "best of" collection (of the three they have now). Most people, it seems, prefer "Loverboy Classics: Their Greatest Hits"; but I don't agree for a few reasons.

First of all, I actually like all three new tracks on "Big Ones". "For You" is an emotional yet very rocking anthem that to me should have been a big hit. "Ain't Looking For Love" is a melodic anthem through and through. "Too Hot" flat out rocks--and it was a very minor hit (just barely in the Billboard Top 100, I believe) at the very end of the 1980s. All of these songs stand up in quality to the previous hit material the band released. The other collections have no new material.

Second, "Classics" really doesn't have anything more on it than this collection that you need. It has three more tracks off of "Get Lucky", which to me is overkill. 7 of the 9 tracks on "Get Lucky" are on that album--and "Get Lucky" is an album that any Loverboy should have anyway and is still actually available. The other two tracks on "Classics" that aren't on "Big Ones" are the non-hit ballad "Destination Heartbreak" (by far Loverboy's worst ballad and one of the weaker ballads of the genre as a whole) and the admittedly classic movie love ballad "Almost Paradise"--which isn't a Loverboy song. (Since my wife has the "Footloose" soundtrack, no need for me to have it anyway. ) If "Classics" had added, say, "Queen Of The Broken Hearts" and "Love Will Rise Again", then maybe you'd have a truly complete collection. As it stands, that collection is unnecessary if you bought this one first.

I recommend this one anyway. It is a good summary of the band's career and includes the three stellar new (at the time or release) tracks in place of "Lucky Ones" overkill. Buy this and "Lucky Ones"; then try to find the other original albums if you still need more Loverboy. This collection is definitely worth the listen for a slice of fun 1980s mainstream hard rock.

You can see a complete list of all Loverboy discography, or go back to the Loverboy tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.