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slap my Billy and call me Squier, this carefully curated collection of '80s pop and rock stars playing their hits acoustically rises well above the expected kitsch factorIn a decade dominated by electronic instruments and grandiose studio effects, most '80s songwriters still created their work on acoustic guitars and pianos. So it's especially dramatic to hear something like Naked Eyes' synth-driven gem "Promises, Promises" brought back down to a chilling minor-key blues, as opposed to, say, most of the performances on MTV's "Unplugged" era -- the differences were rarely as stark or riveting. Berlin, for instance, actually transforms and elevates one of their blippy hits; this white-knuckled acoustic reading of "The Metro" is positively cathartic, with singer Terri Nunn wailing like a slightly batty Courtney Love (is that redundant?) over an urgent Violent Femmes guitar chug. Even Rick Springfield, who leads the set with "Jessie's Girl," sounds authentic presenting what is, behind this guy's unfortunate Tiger Beat rap, a pretty good pop song. Heart's "These Dreams" involves a string quartet and shadows anything that came later by the Indigo Girls.
-- Thomas Conner, Chicago Sun Times
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The new '80s Hits Stripped album has a number of standouts. By that, I mean songs that take on an entirely new life as acoustic tunes. There's Naked Eyes doing "Promises Promises. Billy Squier offers a bluesy version of "The Stroke". (Hey, the guy can sing!) Berlin's naked version of "Riding on the Metro" is worth checking out, too
-- Robin Hilton, NPR Mixed Signals
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Berlin, headed by singer Terri Nunn, delivers an especially interesting guitar-riff-anchored version of "The Metro." The album's highlight, however, is a rendition of the Outfield's "Your Love," originally recorded in 1992 as part of a radio station tribute to the late Freddie MercuryRobert Kinsler, Orange County Register
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Other songscome off better than ever and inspire nostalgic pangs for the innocence of the time. "Jessie's Girl" makes you fall in love with Rick Springfield all over again. He sounds so intimate and cute and sexy, it's like it's 1981 and Dr. Noah Drake from "General Hospital" has come to make a house call and he just happened to bring his acoustic guitar! "No One Is to Blame" by Howard Jones, one of those great teen-angst tunes you'd play over and over just to torment yourself surely I'm not the only one who did this surprisingly becomes warm, reassuring and inclusive in concert. It's just you and hundreds of your closest friends, singing along with Jones on the piano
-- Christy Lemire, Associated Press
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Rick springfield’s Live in Rockford DVD is issued on 24 October. Joe Matera collared him to talk about it.
“We recorded the DVD earlier this year in High Definition with eight cameras at the Coronado Theatre in Illinois. It’s a record of what we were doing on the road at the time.
“We also have out a special edition of Working Class Dog with three bonus tracks, including two that were the songs that got me my original deal with RCA. One is Easy To Cry, a 70s rock song which didn’t really fit the album and was never released. But it was good enough to score me the deal, along with Taxi Dancing.
What was the first record you ever bought?
The Shadows’ The savage, though the first record I ever owned was bought by mum. It was Charlie Drake’s My Boomerang Won’t Come Back.
What’s the last CD you bought?
Queens Of The Stone Age’s Lullablies to Paralyze.
What’s your favourite record ever?
The Kinks’ You Really Got Me. It was the first perfect record I ever heard from beginning to the end.
What album would you take to heaven?
With The Beatles, as it’s one of those records I never get sick of. It encapsulates everything about the time when I was 14. All those memories are tied up in that album, as it was a great time in my life. I remember I was just aware enough of the whole Beatles phenomenon, so I really got it.
If you could go back would there be anything you’d like to change?
No, because I think everything has its purpose. There could be the whole General Hospital thing that I got a backlash to in the States when I first started it. But I see the positive side to pretty much all of it. Maybe the only thing I would do is choose a different first movie than Hard To Hold.
Do you have a record coleection?
No. But I collect music. I have my iPod filled with music, from old Billy Thorpe songs, to Tool, Mozart, The Shadows.
Is there anything left to plunder in the archives?
I’ve got tons of demos. I only had three albums out before Working Class Dog, but I’d been writing for 10 years prior to it. I found a tape recently in storage that had about 15 or 20 songs that I’d written just before Working Class Dog and I’d forgotten about. So there’s stuff like that, and there are probably some half-finished tracks in storage too at the record companies, plus there are a lot of demos that I have that were done in a full, multi-instrument format.
Have you got any ambitions left to fulfil?
I’m still very driven and hungry, and that’s why I’m still out on the road. I continue writing and recording, and my main unfulfilled ambition is to write the best song ever!
And top Jessie’s Girl?
I’m still chasing that one, I don’t know if that’s the best song I’ve ever written, but it’s certainly the most popular.
Rick’s 80s Hits Stripped is available via www.sidewinder-music.com
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