"Follow Your Heart" by Triumph

Song#:  2239
Date:  03/09/1985
Debut:  89
Peak:  88
Weeks:  2
Genre:  Hard Rock



Pop Bits:  This Canadian band had their peak moment in 1981 when their album Allied Forces reached #23 and went platinum. It was boosted by the #8 Rock track "Magic Power" (#51 Pop). It set them up well for their next album, 1982's Never Surrender. The LP was able to generate two Top 3 Rock tracks, but neither reached the Pop chart. Without that extra support, the album didn't sell as well and stopped at gold. While that is not a bad outcome, the band was having issues with RCA, which caused a lack of support from the label. Needing a change, the band grabbed a new deal with MCA and began work on their seventh studio album, Thunder Seven. Like their previous LP, results were fairly solid (another gold seller), yet unspectacular. The first single from the album, "Spellbound," got to #10 at Rock, but failed to reach the Pop chart. This next single got to #13 at Rock and got them back on the Pop chart, however very briefly. It would be the band's last single to reach the Pop chart. They would issue three more studio albums, two of which would go gold in Canada, but by the mid-90s their focus shifted to their tours.

ReduxReview:  Well, this certainly isn't "Magic Power." That song was hooky, melodic, and commercial enough to attract a wide audience of listeners. This song is a bit more hard rocking in a late 70s Styx kind of way via The Scorpions. It was in no way anything that was going to click on Pop radio. The opening guitar licks were promising as was the first verse, but once it got to the chorus, the song fell apart. By the end, there was just a lot of upper-register screaming vocals going on and it became grating. It's two-week stay on the chart was about two too many.

ReduxRating:  3/10

Trivia:  The second side of the band's Never Surrender album featured a bit of a conceptual theme that featured a prologue and epilogue. For Thunder Seven, they once again turned side two into a more prog-rock piece where the six songs focused on various concepts of time. It included two instrumental pieces and the "Time Canon," which consisted of multiple vocal tracks layered on top of each other.

_________________________________________________________________________________