Bob’s Jukebox: Heart

So last week I mentioned how MNSHS taught me growing up not to buy an album until I was sure I liked at least three songs on the album, because that way I would get a better price than if I bought the singles. Completely by coincidence this week I managed to pick an album that exemplifies why she told me to do that (although TBH, it’s probably not much of a coincidence; I’ve been following that rule for most of my life, so a lot of my collection is like that). This week we have a flashback all the way to near the beginning of the MTV era, the self-titled major mainstream comeback for Heart.

Kinda gotta admit I was thinking at first that I was looking at this one through nostalgia tinted glasses. The first track, “If Looks Could Kill”, did not appeal to me at all. The same happened with most of the songs on the album that I was unfamiliar with, the lone exception being “Nobody Home”, which I didn’t love but I at least thought was pleasant. I figured maybe I just enjoyed the old hits because they were exactly that, old songs I have heard plenty of times that reminded me of my youth (and to be honest, Nancy Wilson looked amazing in those videos at a time when I was just discovering that girls were… well… amazing).

But despite my huge crush on Nancy (which I have 100% gotten over I swear #Nancycallme), I had a hard time believing that I only liked those songs because of nostalgia, so I listened to the album again (it’s not a particularly long album, clocking in at just under 40 minutes). I started to realize two things: first, the singles that were released off the album just felt more polished, for lack of a better word. They had more je ne sais quoi, but apparently the music producers at Capitol Records do, because they picked the right songs to release as singles (although apparently they also released “If Looks Could Kill” as a single, but hey, if two out of three ain’t bad then four out of five is pretty darn good.) Second, I really liked 40% of the songs on this album, I kind of liked another 10%, and I was ambivalent about another 40% (for those of you doing the math, we’ll get to that last 10% in a bit). That’s average to good for pretty much any album, so it’s probably nothing to do with nostalgia, just a matter of personal taste.

A lot of what was driving that personal taste was the fact that this album is driven more by raw talent than the sum of its parts. The lyrics aren’t particularly strong on any of the songs, and the music isn’t overly intricate or interesting except in its execution. Which is to say, Ann is a great singer with a beautiful voice, and Nancy is a great guitarist who knows how to be entertaining. That comes through in the popular singles from this album (“What About Love”, “These Dreams”, “Never”, and “Nothin’ at All”) and not so much if at all on the other songs. This was particularly apparent (and egregious) toward the end of the album.

The album ends on the thoroughly disappointing “Shell Shock”, which I would never have sat all the way through if I hadn’t promised myself I would listen to the entire album. Quite frankly, the only thing of value in the song are Nancy’s all-too-brief guitar solos, and they in no way justify the existence of this song, no matter how good they are. Ann’s vocals are at least decent to excellent on every other song on the album, so I have no idea what happened here. I guess she decided she could phone it in at least once. Considering there is only one song on the album with as many credited writers (that being “The Wolf”), it’s also no surprise the lyrics are even more disappointing than the rest of the album.

All things equal, unless you are a huge Heart fan, I would recommend either just buying the singles these days, or else getting a copy of a greatest hits album that has the four big singles off this album. There’s just nothing special here to recommend it.