Chris Rea Album Espresso Logic Lc1557

With the success of the band Incantation and ethnic South American music in 1982-1983, Chris Rea introduced his sixth album, Wired to the Moon, with the track "Bombollini," which was over six minutes of jungle-sounding drums and the haunting sound of pan pipes. The ethnic flavor continued on the second track, "Touché d'Amour," which was reggae in the unashamed style of lovers rock. However, Rea wasn't going to disappoint his fans altogether, small in number though they were in the U.K., having built a career over several albums of soft rock tracks and midtempo ballads with Dire Straits-style guitar breaks, and the rest of the tracks on Wired to the Moon fell easily into this category, especially "Shine, Shine, Shine" and "Holding Out," which were lovely emotive ballads.

With the success of the band Incantation and ethnic South American music in 1982-1983, Chris Rea introduced his sixth album, Wired to the Moon, with the track "Bombollini," which was over six minutes of jungle-sounding drums and the haunting sound of pan pipes. The ethnic flavor continued on the second track, "Touché d'Amour," which was reggae in the unashamed style of lovers rock. However, Rea wasn't going to disappoint his fans altogether, small in number though they were in the U.K., having built a career over several albums of soft rock tracks and midtempo ballads with Dire Straits-style guitar breaks, and the rest of the tracks on Wired to the Moon fell easily into this category, especially "Shine, Shine, Shine" and "Holding Out," which were lovely emotive ballads. Meanwhile, "Ace of Hearts," the title track, and the final song, "Winning," were soft rock numbers – almost MOR – crying out for daytime radio play or a top-selling commercial artist to cover them (but neither of these came about). Yet again, the record company released just one single from a Rea album.

Five CD box set containing a quintet of original albums from this British singer/songwriter: Espresso Logic, On The Beach, Road To Hell, Shamrock Diaries and Watersign

Chris Rea remained one of the best-kept secrets in the music industry, releasing five albums between 1979 and 1983, none of them reaching even the Top 50 in the charts. All were very well received by both the critics and the public who knew the secret. His secret was a brand of late-night rock that had an element of class, not dissimilar at this stage of his career to the early-'80s Dire Straits albums, but totally out of step, and proudly so, with the music of the time – new romantic, power and synth pop. He opened the album Water Sign with the song "Nothing's Happening by the Sea," which was so far laid back it was almost horizontal, with a harmonica instrumental break, and the album closed with a nod to synth pop on the track "Out of the Darkness."

Success continued to elude Chris Rea on his third album, Tennis, on which he began to experiment with slightly longer songs and more free-form jamming, the songs "Every Time I See You Smile," "Stick It," and the title track all being over five minutes long. For Tennis, he enlisted the assistance of Raphael Ravenscroft on saxophone fresh from his crowning moment on the Gerry Rafferty "Baker Street" single and Pete Wingfield on keyboards, among many other musicians to contribute to this album, but Chris Rea himself stamped his personal mark on the album, writing all the songs, providing vocals, guitar, and keyboards, and he even dispensed with the need for an outside producer.

New Light Through Old Windows is a compilation album by Chris Rea, released in 1988. The album consists primarily of re-recordings of songs released on earlier Rea albums, as well as two new songs, "Working on It" (which gave him a rare U.S. chart single, peaking at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100, and giving him his only #1 single on the Mainstream Rock Tracks chart) and "Driving Home for Christmas.", also the re-recording of "On the Beach" gave him another rare US hit, it peaked #9 on the US AC chart in 1988 and #12 in the UK chart.

Success continued to elude Chris Rea on his third album, Tennis, on which he began to experiment with slightly longer songs and more free-form jamming, the songs "Every Time I See You Smile," "Stick It," and the title track all being over five minutes long. For Tennis, he enlisted the assistance of Raphael Ravenscroft on saxophone fresh from his crowning moment on the Gerry Rafferty "Baker Street" single and Pete Wingfield on keyboards, among many other musicians to contribute to this album, but Chris Rea himself stamped his personal mark on the album, writing all the songs, providing vocals, guitar, and keyboards, and he even dispensed with the need for an outside producer. Hence the Elton John feel of his Gus Dudgeon-produced previous album, Deltics was gone, aside from on the ballad "Every Time I See You Smile," and it was replaced by a variety of styles including the horn-driven "Forever and Ever," the gospel song "Stick It" that closed the album, and the reggae-tinged, guitar-led instrumental "Friends Across the Water".

Dancing with Strangers is the ninth studio album by British singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 1987. It became Rea's first major success in UK, peaking at #2, behind Michael Jackson's Bad, and spent 46 weeks in the charts, achieving Platinum accreditation. It reached the Top 10 in six other European countries, while in New Zealand it became a number one album. "Let's Dance" was released as the first single and, like the album, became a major hit for Rea in UK, peaking at #12. In tone with the success of the album, "Let's Dance" became a major hit in New Zealand as well, peaking at #2. The other singles released from this album were "Loving You Again" (UK #47), "Joys of Christmas" (UK #67) and "Que Sera" (UK #73).