Unless I am misremembering, this album was one of a couple hand-delivered to me by this site's biggest benefactor sometime in April 2014. It was around High Noon that day in the parking lot of a BBQ joint somewhere in East Texas, with my first and still biggest fan - my Mom - looking on as a witness. We had driven all morning through three states (Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma) to make it by lunchtime and had a good meal and great conversation with said fan, who in addition to being extremely generous is also incredibly modest and wishes to keep his identity a secret. Mom said he was "a true Southern gentleman" and has maintained somewhat of a crush on the guy since we met him that day. And she is so looking forward to dining with him once again as we reverse course and drive sixteen hours eastward in a few weeks.
The supercharged hyperbole aside, Danger! High Voltage is loaded with pop and rock hits aplenty. (Still, when I read or type the title of the album I can't help but sing this song to myself.) My favorite songs on the album are this one
with all of its dated video effects and this one
with Sting sporitng his best Beat shirt and this one
with its super sticky sweet power pop goodness (hey, is that Dwight Twilley on guitar?) and finally this one
with lead singer Mike Reno in full strain, pained expression on every word. Other favorites include Franke & the Knockouts, Hall & Oates, Delbert McClinton, Pat Benatar and Eddie Rabbitt's easy rolling "I Love A Rainy Night". Fourteen tracks, all of which I heard on one radio station (WLS) or another (WLRW) or saw on Solid Gold. I'm predicting crossover hits on the AC chart and maybe hopefully the newly fledged Top (Rock) Tracks chart of 1981. Danger! High Voltage should easily score a 30. Firing up the K-Tel Scale...
HIGH VOLTAGE [1981]
| K-tel Scale: |
31.46
| |||||
| Billboard Top 40s | |||||||
| Pop | R&B | ROCK | AC | CB | WLS | ||
| Living Inside Myself | Gino Vannelli | 6 | 5 | 9 | 13 | ||
| Sweetheart | Franke & the Knockouts | 10 | 27 | 40 | 13 | 16 | |
| Too Much Time On My Hands | Styx | 9 | 2 | 8 | 4 | ||
| Don't Stand So Close To Me | The Police | 10 | 11 | 9 | 8 | ||
| Precious To Me | Phil Seymour | 22 | 34 | 34 | 29 | ||
| Games People Play | Alan Parsons Project | 16 | 18 | 8 | |||
| Kiss On My List | Hall & Oates | 1 | 16 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Celebration | Kool & the Gang | 1 | 1 | 34 | 1 | 2 | |
| Giving It Up For Your Love | Delbert McClinton | 8 | 35 | 10 | 23 | ||
| Tell It Like It Is | Heart | 8 | 14 | 19 | |||
| Treat Me Right | Pat Benatar | 18 | 31 | 10 | 10 | ||
| Turn Me Loose | Loverboy | 35 | 6 | 33 | 24 | ||
| Dreaming | Cliff Richard | 10 | COU | 21 | 9 | 17 | |
| I Love A Rainy Night | Eddie Rabbitt | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 | |
Excellent score; just shy of cracking the Top 10. Three Pop #1s, with crossover #1s on the R&B, AC and Country charts. Twelve of fourteen are Pop Top 20 and ten of those are Top 10. This one may not have something for everyone (actually it does) but it certainly has a lot of something for someone. Its one of my favorites without a doubt.
Of course the album was released on 8-track and cassette. Heck, for collectors like us, there is even a white cover variation (below) of Danger! High Voltage though the official Kollection kopy is the beige one. Both variations seem to be rather easy to acquire as there are plenty of them for sale on the secondary market and you shouldn't have to pay more than $2 for a quality copy though as always, non-vinyl formats go for a few bucks more.
Canada also got a blast of Danger! High Voltage, though as you can see above they practically got a whole new tracklisting. Only three songs carried over from the American counterpart - eleven songs were removed and twelve were added so they ended up with a fifteen song album which sadly scored below 20 on the K-Tel Scale. Listen to the Canadian rendition of Danger! High Voltage here or go all in and listen to the border crossing Can Am Mega Mix below featuring all 26 songs from both albums.
Next time here on the Kollection, we'll be featuring 1981's Dancer, "the danceable side of today's rock":
I never considered myself much of a singles collector, but had many of these very tunes on 45. That fact, coupled with inclusion of one of my favorite yacht ballads of all time ("Living Inside Myself"), makes this one of the best K-Tel compilations yet featured on this boffo blog.
ReplyDelete*Take Two!*
ReplyDeleteThat benefactor of yours sounds like a pretty swell guy... Hope to get the opportunity to meet him my own self one of these days.
Not that you were wondering or anything, but Dirk's "High Voltage" Top 3 would be:
3) Games People Play
2) Kiss On My List
1) Living Inside Myself
Guess that settles that.