Many albums have scaled to the top of the American charts, many of them not so good, but few have been as widely forgotten and spurned as REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity. In a way, the group deserved this kind of success. They had been slogging it out in the arenas of the U.S., building up a sizeable audience because they could deliver live. And then, in 1980, they delivered a record that not just summarized their strengths, but captured everything that was good about arena rock. This is the sound of the stadiums in that netherworld between giants like Zeppelin and MTV's slick, video-ready anthems.
Many albums have scaled to the top of the American charts, many of them not so good, but few have been as widely forgotten and spurned as REO Speedwagon's Hi Infidelity. In a way, the group deserved this kind of success. They had been slogging it out in the arenas of the U.S., building up a sizeable audience because they could deliver live. And then, in 1980, they delivered a record that not just summarized their strengths, but captured everything that was good about arena rock. This is the sound of the stadiums in that netherworld between giants like Zeppelin and MTV's slick, video-ready anthems. This is unabashedly mainstream rock, but there's a real urgency to the songs and the performances that gives it a real emotional core, even if the production keeps it tied to the early, previsual '80s.
The Deluxe Edition of the album released in 2011 features a nicely crisp remastering job plus a fascinating bonus disc of demos. Before recording the album proper, the band hit a cheap studio in Hollywood and laid down rough versions of nine of the ten songs that ended up on the album (only "Out of Season" is missing). After attempting to recapture the magic they found in the crummy studio in fancy studios, and failing, the band ended up using about half the original demo performances on the final album and added overdubs to the rest. While it might have been fun to hear some of the failed attempts as well, hearing the entirety of the Crystal Demos is a powerful experience and makes this new edition of the album (even more) absolutely essential.