After three commercial flops, the band Pages (1978 - 1981), lead vocalist Richard Page and keyboardist Steve George decided to try a different approach, and form a more pop friendly oriented band. With Pat Mastelotto on drums and Steve Farris on guitars, Mr. Mister was formed in 1982.
The biggest benefit to the group would be that all members previously worked extensively as session musicians. This allowed them to absorb and perform numerous styles of music, broadening their overall sound.
With the release of their first studio album, Page's voice garnered so much attention that he was offered the chance to replace Bobby Kimbell as lead singer in Toto, as well as Peter Cetera in Chicago. He declined both.
My personal experience with Mr. Mister is frozen in 1985 with their breakthrough album, Welcome To The Real World, which features their highly popular Broken Wings, and Kyrie. It was based on this that I would one day get the inkling to track down their remaining 80's work, which included their debut, and their follow up to Real World, Go On...
Plopping I Wear The Face into the disc drive, and having a while, I was immediately greeted to a very unpolished synth pop sound. Generic, was my first impression. Things did not get better with track two, and at this point I was starting to wonder how Page was offered any opportunities with Toto and Chicago. So far, I was not impressed.
By track five, everything I was hearing was mediocre at best, and frankly, I was tuning it out for the most part. By this point, I just wanted to hear something mildly worth adding to my shuffle list. Something that would make my purchase worth while.
As track seven rolled around, it was obvious this desire wasn't going to be met, so surprising when the final tune, Life Goes On finally resonated positively.
Overall, and fore the most part, I Wear The Face was just lackluster. It wasn't terrible. I didn't hear anything that made me want to immediately skip it. However, with exception of the final song, I also didn't hear anything that really stuck. Additionally, listening to this did not leave me wanting to hear more from Mr. Mister.
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| CD Re-Release Cover |
Of course, I have, and will. As noted above, I've already played through their sophomore, and best selling album, 1985's Welcome To The Real World. From their, the group would dabble a bit in soundtrack contributions. From there, they released their third studio album, Go On..., which we'll tackle next time.
Until then, I suppose that wraps this one up.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS June 1, 1985 |
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