After the phenomenal success that Huey Lewis And The News had
\nwith their third album
\nSports<\/i>, one would have expected the band to pull out all the
\nstops for their followup release.<\/p>\n
Ah, but following up a blockbuster album has sent more than one
\npop artist spinning out of control – even Michael Jackson couldn’t
\nlive up to the post-
\nThriller<\/i> hype. So, in a sense, it shouldn’t be that
\nsurprising that
\nFore!<\/i> is not a strong album in the shadow of
\nSports<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Lewis and crew do stick to the same formula that had brought the
\nband success to this point – for that matter, they hardly changed
\ntheir style at all from their start. A mixture of rock, doo-wop and
\na capella, the band tries to recapture the magic that brought them
\nworldwide accalim.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, if you look at the singles charts,
\nFore!<\/i> is hardly a failure. Four songs provided the band with
\nsignificant radio play, including “Stuck With You” and “Hip To Be
\nSquare”. The problem is that not only were Lewis and the band
\nbelieving their own press releases, but they weren’t putting as
\nmuch into the music as they should have been.<\/p>\n
Compared to
\nSports<\/i>, the songwriting on
\nFore!<\/i> is weak. “Jacob’s Ladder” is an attempt to be a little
\nmore cerebral, but for a band like this, cerebral probably wasn’t
\nsuch a great idea. “Doing It All For My Baby,” another radio hit,
\npales in comparison to earlier numbers like “If This Is It” – this
\ncomes off as a photocopy of a photocopy of a photocopy… the more
\nyou copy it, the less the quality.<\/p>\n
Admittedly, “Stuck With You” is a song that locks itself into
\nyour brain, and becomes catchy after a few listens. Unfortunately,
\nthis could well be the best song on
\nFore!<\/i> – a shame, seeing the potential that this band showed
\njust one album prior.<\/p>\n
The whole second side of
\nFore!<\/i> is pure filler, and doesn’t stand out as anything
\nspecial. Songs like “I Know What I Like” and “Forest For The Trees”
\ndon’t impress; there’s a reason that no singles were culled from
\nthis portion of the record.<\/p>\n
So what happened? Part of the problem is that people most likely
\nexpected something spectacular coming off of
\nSports<\/i>, and this album just didn’t fill the void. Also, it
\nalmost seems like
\nFore!<\/i> was a rushed effort, never mind the fact it came out
\nthree years after
\nSports<\/i>. Had Lewis and crew spent a little more time
\ntightening up the songwriting, and had they been a little more
\ncautious with what they selected to include on the album, this
\ncould have been a worthy follow-up.<\/p>\n
\nFore!<\/i> is a disappointment from which Lewis and The News
\nnever fully recovered – a shame, seeing that their rise and
\ndownfall was so sudden. If you must own this for the hits, then
\npick up one of the greatest hits compilations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5806],"rating":[11204],"class_list":["post-39085","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-huey-lewis-the-news","rating-rating-c-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39085"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}