"Voice of America's Sons" by John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band

Song#:  2762
Date:  06/14/1986
Debut:  83
Peak:  62
Weeks:  8
Genre:  Rock, Soundtrack



Pop Bits:  The band's second album, Tough All Over, could nearly be called their debut. That's because the first LP they recorded was a soundtrack effort for the sleeper hit film Eddie & the Cruisers. The new LP did fairly well at trying to get the band out from Eddie's shadow. It featured two singles that hit the Rock Top 10 including the #1 (#22 Pop) title track. Three singles were released from the album and it seemed like that would wrap up things up, but then this track from the LP was selected by Sylvester Stallone to be on the soundtrack to his action film Cobra. Just prior to the film's opening, this song was pushed out as a single to help promote the movie. It hung around the Pop chart for a couple of months, but couldn't really make any headway. It would be two years before Cafferty and his band would release another album.

ReduxReview:  If Springsteen got mashed with "Mony Mony," this might be the result. It's fine and not a bad listen, but I just feel like I've heard it all before. There's not much here to make it stand out on its own. Cafferty was having a hard time trying to shed the comparisons to Springsteen and a song like this wasn't necessarily going to help. Between Springsteen and Eddie, Cafferty and his band were having a difficult time trying to cut a distinct path for themselves

ReduxRating:  5/10

Trivia:  This song was released at the same time as another track from the Cobra soundtrack, Jean Beauvoir's "Feel the Heat." Stallone was probably looking for another hit soundtrack like the one done for his previous film Rocky IV. That album got four singles on the Pop chart including the Top 10's "Burning Heart" by Survivor (#2) and "Living in America" by James Brown (#4).  It also included Cafferty's solo effort for the film, "Hearts on Fire" (#76). Cobra ended up being a sizable hit, but that didn't seem to spur interest in the songs. The singles by Cafferty and Beauvoir tanked and that left the soundtrack album peaking at a paltry #100.

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