Okay, now that I’ve got all my Avengers ranked it’s time to turn back to music. Like Fleetwood Mac, I discovered Heart in the 70’s, thanks to my older brother Chris. Also like Fleetwood Mac, Heart is still around today, but they’ve got one up on Fleetwood Mac as they’re still recording fairly regularly. The two bands also shared something unique in common: both featured women in the band, starting from a time when that was pretty unusual.
Heart is basically the musical project of the Wilson sister, Ann and Nancy. Brunette Ann is the lead vocalist, although she plays a whole bunch of instruments as well, .Ann is widely regarded to be one of the best rock vocalists of all-time, and I would heartily endorse that. The power of range of Ann’s voice is unprecedented, in fact, even now, in her 70’s, while she can’t quite hit the high notes with the same intensity as a couple of decades ago, she can still blow most singers out of the water. Blonde Nancy is the guitarist. A virtuoso on the acoustic guitar, but also a multi-instrumentalist and a vocalist, Nancy was definitely one of the very first rocking with the guys on the guitar. She provided the beautiful blend of hard-rock and intricate acoustic guitar that was their signature sound for their first decade, and again after they got through the high-haired 80’s,
The Seattle band recorded and released their first album, Dreamboat Annie, in Canada where the band was living at the time in 1975, and the U.S. in 1976. The roots of Heart lay in Seattle, but they moved to Vancouver during the Vietnam Was to avoid the draft. Dreamboat Annie broke big in the States with the help of two Billboard top 40 singles, “Crazy on You” which climbed to #35, and “Magic Man” which was a top 10 hit peaking at #9. The album climbed to #7 on the charts, and was eventually certified platinum. The band, with many different line-ups, save for the Wilson sisters, went on to record 16 studio albums and assortment of greatest hits collections and live albums. Their most recent being Beautiful Broken in 2016.
One thing I’ve learned as I went on a musical journey through Heart’s catalog, is when they’re good… they’re really good, and when they’re not, they’re really not. Heart’s musical phases can really be put into three groupings. Their first seven albums, from 1975 – 1983, married hard rock and acoustic folk in an original sound that came from songs that were written by the band. Toward the end of that run, the band was losing the popularity they enjoyed in the 70’s, and in fact, their songwriting was faltering as well. They were dropped from their label. Capitol Records signed them in the mid-80’s under the condition that they would be repackaged for the video-era, and they would bring in hit-making songwriters to jumpstart their career. The tactic worked, and Heart entered their most popular era with songs like “What About Love”, “Alone”, and “These Dreams”, none of which were penned by the band. It was also the MTV era, where video was everything, and Nancy was pushed out in front, because Ann’s weight began to fluctuate. This was a successful time for the band commercially, but a nadir creatively. Ann’s voice still brought it, but the songs, overall, became pretty bland and unremarkable. Then in 1993, they decided to take back creative control and go back to their rock/acoustic roots. While they were never able to replicate the commercial success of those corporate 80’s albums, they’re songwriting skills had been refreshed and they continued to create some amazing music.
Before I get into my Top 40, here is a little breakdown of their musical eras and their relative success with me.
| Heart’s musical eras and the respective number of songs to make my Top 40. | |
| Dreamboat Annie (1975) – Passionworks (1983) | 24 |
| Heart (1985) – Brigade (1990) | 6 |
| Desire Walks On (1993) – Beautiful Broken (2016) | 14 |
Only three of their studio albums failed to see a song on my Top 40. 1983’s Passionworks, which I remember loving at the time, but now listening to it again, it truly is a subpar album. Their sole Billboard Top 40 song, “How Can I Refuse” does show up in my Top 50. Other songs of note include “Sleep Alone”, “Allies”, and “Together Now”. Brigade, the final of the MTV-era trilogy, released in 1990, left me pretty cold. While it spawned some big hits like “All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You”, and “I Didn’t Want to Need You,” and hit #3 on the Album chart, not a single song from it made it into my Top 100 songs. Finally, 2012’s Fanatic, a real rocker of an album, just didn’t click with me. One very cool song of note off Fanatic, “Mashallah!” did make my Top 50. So a fairly even spread… one album from each era didn’t pass muster with me, but representation from all the others is there.
And to kick things off, here are the ten songs that didn’t quite make it into my To 40!
50. “If Looks Could Kill” – Heart (1985)
49. “Sing Child” – Dreamboat Annie (1975)
48. “Mashallah!” – Fanatic (2012)
47. “(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song” – Dreamboat Annie (1975)
46. “How Can I Refuse?” – Passionworks (1983)
45. “Hijinx” – Dog & Butterfly (1978)
44. “Hey Darlin’ Darlin'” – Private Audition (1982)
43. “Say Hello” – Little Queen (1977)
42. “Even it Up” – Bebe le Strange (1980)
41. “I Jump” – Beautiful Broken (2016)