Artist Spotlight - Rick Springfield (Pure Genius) 1980 - 1989

Glow in the dark Genius-the Tao of Rick Springfield

One of the things I've really enjoyed about writing this blog has been finding things in common with other people. To my surprise, one of those things is an appreciation for the musical talent of Rick Springfield, or as I used to call him, The Genius. Now, to get it out of the way, I'll cop to some (or a lot) of hero worship for the guy when I was in High School. He made great music and got all the girls while doing it. I used to call him The Genius because he was able to take the Pop/Rock sound which usually had very general sentiments and put a singer/songwriter spin on it. Because of his teen idol image, his music was often written off as fluff but what I heard was a substantial artist. Since I covered Living in Oz already I thought I would do a little career retrospective. I became a fan after hearing the song "Souls" and bought his records back to his 1981 release Working Class Dog. So, I'll start there.

Working Class Dog (1981)

After finding success in his native Australia in the early 70's in a band called Zoot, Rick Springfield came to America looking for success. Despite scoring a Top 20 single Speak to the Sky his career ran into issues and fizzled. Springfield would spend the 70's releasing music sporadically to a small audience and took up acting as a fall back career.

After signing onto the soap opera General Hospital, Springfield found his fall back career taking off which put him in a position to do what he wanted to do: music. Now armed with an ardent fan base of soap fans, Springfield was ready to rock!

Working Class Dog is a model of early 80's Pop/Rock. Production that was smooth, hooky choruses and tight playing with a slight emphasis on musicianship. His first single, the immortal Jessie's Girl, was a #1 single. Great memories of that song, particularly because I had a friend named Jesse who hated that song (he got a lot of crap for it and called Springfield "Dick Springfield" because of it). The Genius was also given the Sammy Hagar penned "I've Done Everything For You" which he rode into the Top 10 (I have to admit, I like Sammy's version more). And then he piled on even more power pop glory with Love Is Alright Tonite which hit the Top 20 (I seem to remember fellow soap actor John Stamos playing this song in a short lived TV series with I think Jami Gertz). But for me, the two classic songs were the spiraling riffs in "Carry Me Away" and the midnight luv balladry of "Inside Sylvia".

Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet (1982)

The success of Dog increased Springfield's visibility all over, meaning he had to work double time to keep going. Springfield said Success was recorded while simultaneously working on General Hospital. That might explain the sort of patchwork feel to this record, though the individual cuts are fine. The Genius was able to mine the jealousy theme further with his third Top 10 hit, Don't Talk To Strangers. Two other singles, the "Jessie's Girl"ish I Get Excited and the poor boy ballad What Kind of Fool Am I also hit the Top 40. But the two memorable cuts for me was the rocker Kristina with it's Yes "Roundabout" keyboards and the Police style reggae rock of How Do You Talk To Girls. Back then, the "Girls" song was the one we all related to. Towards the end of the record is "April 21, 1981" which was about the passing of his father.

Living in Oz (1983)

Since I recently wrote a huge thing about this record, I'll be brief. Springfield indicated the record company wasn't tracking his career as strongly at this point because they thought his ride was close to over. Genius that he is, Springfield took the opportunity to toughen up his sound and grow stubble on his face. This was also longtime sideman Tim Pierce's chance to really make an impact with his guitar playing, which he does. My favorite record of Springfield's 'cause it was the hardest rocking one. This was the point where I became a fan of The Genius, it was all part of his master plan to make everyone his fan!

Hard To Hold (1984)

Like any actor / singer, Springfield felt the need to bring the two worlds together for a motion picture. And so the stupefyingly boring movie Hard to Hold was unleashed on the public, probably resulting in many people running back to a 10th viewing of Purple Rain to get the Springfield movie out of their heads. The Genius thought he could make up the bad film making with great songs. He couldn't, but it made for a good soundtrack!

After the opening salvo of his last huge hit, Love Somebody, Springfield continued to show growth while moving away from his trademark sound. Sure, the mid tempo drama Don't Walk Away was a Top 20 single and felt in line with his past work. But the third single, Bop Til You Drop , belied an increasing interest in dance beats and electronic noises. He was going to be Buck Rogers...or at least Duck Dodgers in the 21st and a half century! Taxi Dancing was the fourth single, a pleasant duet with Randy Crawford. The album also contained my favorite Springfield ballad, "The Great Lost Art of Conversation." The Genius earned a slot at Live Aid to play to his largest audience yet...The World! I also saw him live on this tour, it was really well staged. But my strongest memory was waiting in line to get some food, these girls behind me were going off on how they saw the girl Springfield was eating dinner with and how she wasn't all that and really skanky. Probably wasn't even true.

Around this same time, some Springfield recordings he had done in the 70's were re-recorded without his involvement while keeping his vocal. The result was the Beautiful Feelings record, something Springfield was against but still resulted in a Top 40 hit and one of my favorite Genius songs, "Bruce".

Tao (1985)

The Genius started to feel uneasy about his teen idol status and was battling depression, resulting in the somber tone of Tao. Like Yin and Yang, the album contained introspective lyrics with extroverted beats as he dived head long into synthesizers, vocoders and drum machines. Commercially, it was the beginning of the end but artistically it is a stand out album. The lead single Celebrate Youth picked up where "Bop Til You Drop" left off. But the real winner was State of the Heart, an awesomely sublime piece of melodic rock. At the time, my favorite song was the nuclear fear driven "Walking on the Edge" which my memory has placed as an almost Nine Inch Nails type song, though I'm sure I'm way off on that one. A third single, Dance This World Away , featured vocals from Martin Page (that's Mr. Mister to you buddy!) while the song that really sticks is the moving tribute to his father in My Father's Chair . Artistically, I thought this was the high point of his career though it hasn't aged well.

Rock of Life (1988)

Springfield's depression really started to show on Rock of Life. The whole disc had this sad haze over it. Still, the Sting-like single Rock of Life went Top 40. For a second single, Springfield's management tried to drum up hype by claiming Honeymoon in Beirut was a smash in that war torn country. Even if it was, it didn't exactly spur sales. Despite some good songs, the morose tone pretty much sank the album commercially. This was the disc I listened to a lot in college, the song "World Start Turning" was great as well as the slower "Soul To Soul". It ended with the sorta campy "If You Think You're Groovy". Oddly, of all the Rick Springfield discs this is the one I miss having the most. It accompanied me on a lot of long drives when I would visit home from college.

A year later, Springfield was injured in an ATV accident that contributed to an extended leave from the music scene. He wouldn't return until 1999 with the Karma album. The Genius is still going strong, he's releasing a new disc Venus in Overdrive and has a new single "What's Victoria's Secret". The new song is below, it is once again the work of a Genius.

Rick Springfield "What's Victoria's Secret"