"Straight from the Heart" by Bryan Adams

Top 10 Alert!

Song#:  1373
Date:  03/12/1983
Debut:  81
Peak:  10
Weeks:  19
Genre:  Rock



Pop Bits:  Canadian Adams got a little visibility in the US when his single "Lonely Nights" from his second album reached #84 the previous year. It set him up well for his next album "Cuts Like a Knife." This lead-off single was first issued in Canada where it would end up reaching #20. Its success began to spill over the border into the US where a few of months later, it would become Adams' first US Top 10 hit (#32 Mainstream Rock). The album would end up doing equally well in both countries reaching #8.

ReduxReview:  I like odd coincidences. I had one with this song. The morning of the day I wrote this post, I had this song buzzing in my head. But it wasn't the Bryan Adams version. It was the cover version done by Bonnie Tyler (see below). The kicker was that I had no idea this was the next song on the chart to be written about! Weird. Anyway, when this single came out I wasn't a fan. I just heard it as a lumbering rock ballad that didn't really go anywhere. It's actually a good pop song, but I didn't connect with it or Adams. Hearing it now, it might have been the low-key production that turned me off. It's just a boring arrangement. I think that's why the Bonnie Tyler version sticks in my head. It's much more dramatic and it serves the song quite well. I still find the Adams version a bit boring.

ReduxRating:  5/10

Trivia:  Throughout the late 70s and early 80s, Adams wrote songs that got recorded by other artists. This was one of them. Initially it was picked up and recorded by American singer Ian Lloyd, lead vocalist of the Stories ("Brother Louis," #1, 1973). He placed it on his third solo album "3WC (Third Wave Civilization)" in 1980. It was not issued as a single. (Lloyd also first cut Adams' "Lonely Nights" on the LP.) Next, Irish pop band Rosetta Stone recorded the song in 1982 and issued it as a single (just a couple months prior to Adams' own single). It failed to get any attention and it ended up being the band's final single. After Adams covered his own tune, Bonnie Tyler recorded a version of the song in 1983 for her hit album "Faster Than the Speed of Night." It was issued as a single, but failed to chart.

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