EXPRESSIONS [1980]

1980's Expressions is the first of three consecutive and similar themed albums, all boasting soft rock love songs and vaguely romantic titles like Horizions and Songbird.

Expressions is also the last album in the Kollection from the Class of 1980 and one of the only titles K-Tel actually used more than once, as another Expressions album was later released in 1984.  The catalog number of Expressions (1980) is TU 2840 and it has fourteen songs while the catalog number of Expressions (1984) is NU 3080 and has thirteen songs. They have entirely different cover art as well though the tagline on the 1984 album echoes that of the 1980 album: "A Collection Of Today's Soft Sounds".  (The latter album is currently scheduled to be the final one featured here on the K-Tel Kollection and at my current rate of one every other week, I should be publishing that post sometime before August 2016.)

I'm thinking this one is gonna be right around a 30 on The K-Tel Scale but I'm also curious how well it does on the AC charts.  There are several Pop Number Ones but I'm wondering how many Number Ones from the AC chart.  

EXPRESSSIONS [1980]		K-tel Scale:				30.68
		Billboard Top 40s
		Pop	R&B	Disco	AC	CB	WLS
Still	Commodores	1	1		6	1	5
I'll Never Love This Way Again	Dionne Warwick	5	18		5	5	5
Where Were You When I Was Falling In Love	Lobo	23			1	16
I Do Love You	G.Q.	20	5			27	26
A Little Bit More	Dr. Hook	11			15	9	27
So Good, So Right	Brenda Russell	30	15		8	26
You're Only Lonely	J.D. Souther	7			1	7	12
Just When I Needed You Most	Randy Vanwarmer	4			1	5	12
Sad Eyes	Robert John	1			10	1	2
Lead Me On	Maxine Nightingale	5	37		1	5	11
Different Worlds	Maureen McGovern	18			1	26
Do It Or Die	Atlanta Rhythm Section	19			11	21	19
This Night Won't Last Forever	Michael Johnson	19			5	18
Please Don't Go	KC & the Sunshine Band	1			27	3	5

Not too shabby but not good enough to break into the Top 10.  Three Number Ones on the Pop chart and five over on the AC chart, where all but song on the album charted.  While I could find no images of a cassette or eight-track configuration of Expressions for the American market, I am fairly certain they exist.  In the marketplace, this vinyl album usually fetches $2-$2.50 in very good quality - there's even a still sealed, mint copy going for $5 if you look in the right place.  And for what it's worth, I saw two copies (with heavily handled covers, I didn't bother to check the condition of the records themselves) for 99 cents each in a bin at a certain nationwide charitable thrift store today.

My research did score this fine example of the Canadian 8-track version of Expressions, which in addition to having a slightly different running order than its vinyl countryman counterpart only shares four songs in common with its American neighbor.  It scored at 23.47 on The K-Tel Scale due to only 5 Top 10 US Top 40 hits and two songs by Canadian artists that failed to make the Top 40 altogether. You might also notice on the cover art on the image of the tape above that for whatever reason, those crazy Canadians omitted the word "Soft" from the tagline as it appears on the US album so instead of saying The Soft Sounds Of Today's Rock it reads The Sounds Of Today's Rock.

While listening to Expressions, I was reminded that Dirk Digglinator used three of the songs found on Expressions on the debut volume of his own soft rockin' series, Radio Daze (Revisited).

BillboardTopHits1980's needle drop of Expressions 

Next time out, we'll be listening to Horizons from 1981:

Expressions US vinyl images from ebay seller bugguy2258

Expressions Canadian 8-track image from 8 Track Shack