[Adapted from a review originally appearing in On The Town magazine on January 7, 1997]<\/i><\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re reviewing Huey Lewis?\u201d said an acquaintance the other night with barely disguised contempt. \u201cThat should be a slam dunk.\u201d Well, you know, he has a point. What’s to admire, really, about a basically one-note band whose climb to the top of the charts was led by cheesy outside-written Top 40 knockoffs like 1982\u2019s \u201cDo You Believe In Love?\u201d and 1983\u2019s \u201cHeart And Soul\u201d? And that’s not even touching \u201cBuzz Buzz Buzz.\u201d<\/p>\n
But it turns out Huey knew exactly what he was doing all along, as revealed by his quotation of the band’s simple mantra: \u201calways keep it pure, keep it honest.\u201d Granted, to anyone who didn’t grow up suburban whitebread like yours truly, Huey\u2019s vision of purity and honesty may seem a little lightweight, but listen to the music. The man truly believes in the innocent come-ons of songs like \u201cDoing It All For My Baby\u201d and \u201cStuck With You\u201d; he honestly feels the \u201caw shucks\u201d giddiness of \u201cThe Heart Of Rock & Roll\u201d and \u201cI Want a New Drug\u201d deep in his soul. He stacks the music with \u201950s rock and roll cliches, piles on his own vision of uncomplicated, idealized fun and romance, and runs with it for all he\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
The best number he ever produced (and, happily, his biggest hit), \u201cThe Power of Love,\u201d is also a pretty fair lyric, managing to hit on most of the various things love can do for (and against) us in a clever way and wrapping it up in a song whose driving rock choruses frame the small, sweet ballad tucked into the break. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s not the Mona Lisa, but Huey and company have never been about Art; they’re about having a good time, free from the cynicism and negativity that envelops so much of the world today. So leave your pretensions at the door and just goof for a while. It\u2019s not so bad… you might even have a little fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[5806],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43650","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-huey-lewis-the-news","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43650","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43650"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43650\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43650"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}