Retro Spins: Heart - Passionworks

With prior members, Derosier and Fossen, out, and new members Denny Carmassi, and Mark Andes in, Heart began work on 1983's Passionworks. It would be a shift from their traditional hard rock and folk style, cutting back on acoustic guitars, and adopting a more mainstream sound. Though it was steps in the right direction, and would ultimately lead to their 1985 self titled opus, this album failed to provide the impact needed for the band. Despite this, Heart was able to achieve a number one single with How Can I Refuse on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Charts.

Diving straight in, it delivers a solid start with Sleep Alone, and keeps this momentum up a bit with Language Of Love, the latter which could easily have been a song by Olivia Newton-John. In fact, typing that out, I'd like to have heard that.

What I don't hear in the album is the professed shift to mainstream. I won't go so far as to say it sounds dated, I.E. 70's classic rock, but it also doesn't have the dominant synthesizer sound that I would associate with an 80's album. It's shifting in that direction, for sure, it's just not quite there.

I had high expectations for How Can I Refuse, what with it being noted as a number one single. It was just okay, which was a little shocking considering its chart status. It was here that I could definitely hear the radio friendly band that would soon emerge.

With Blue Guitar, and Ambush, I finally started hearing that shift to a mainstream style. The track was okay, if not a little drab and boring. However, it was also understandable. This was new territory for Heart, and they were still learning. This effort remained for the remainder of the album, but didn't necessarily produce any tracks worth raving about.

Because of their poor performance, Heart's Private Audition and Passionworks would be among the few in their catalog to go out of print, and remained so until being released together as a duel CD in 2009 by BGO Records. Though this too is now out of print, they have both since been re-released a few times.

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THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS
July 10, 1982