Customer Reviews

Keep It Up

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

In 1983, I was a rabid 16-year-old Loverboy fan, complete with pictures of lead singer Mike Reno (he of the headband) plastered all over my bedroom and school locker. I can remember when my best friend got the first single from "Keep It Up," "Hot Girls In Love," and played it over the phone for me--27 times in a row. Times changed, I grew up and expanded my musical repetoire, but "Keep It Up", along with its predecessor, "Get Lucky," are still mainstays in my CD collection. "Keep It Up" is slightly more poppy overall, particularly "Hot Girls In Love," which was the band's first major chart hit and ruled MTV in the summer of '83. However, guitarist Paul Dean's heavy metal hand is shown to advantage in "Strike Zone," the closest thing to a topical song Loverboy ever did, the funky "Passion Pit," which showcased bassist Scott Smith, and the surprisingly thoughtful "Prime Of Your Life." In fact, the entire album still holds up well, particularly "Queen Of The Broken Hearts," another MTV mainstay and arguably their best song. Only the treacly power ballad "It's Never Easy" and the awkwardly worded but otherwise decent "Meltdown" strike bum notes. Without Mike Reno, Loverboy is on the verge of metal, but it's his high, light yet powerful vocals that kept the pop in this power-pop group. No angst or darkness here--just fun, well-arranged songs with a lot of guitar and great singalong potential. Enjoy!

You can't go wrong with this album, if you can find it. I hope they bring it back into production. It includes four outstanding songs (Hot Girls in Love, Strike Zone, It's Never Easy, and Queen of the Broken Hearts) and five good songs. "It's Never Easy" is a beautiful bittersweet song about falling out of love. Mike Reno wears his heart on his sleeve, and you can feel the passion and honesty in his singing.

KEEP IT UP is Loverboy's third album and these guys are still rocking hard. The band was still under contract with Columbia Records,making this album their third since 1980. Hits include QUEEN OF THE BROKEN HEARTS and HOT GIRLS IN LOVE. The other songs are good.

Keep it up by Loverboy is one of the great albums of the 80's. I loved it then and I still love it!!!!

This mini-lp replica sleeve (mlps) release of the Foreigner sound-alike from Canada is a real treat for fans and collectors alike. As far as mlps designs go this one ranks among the best that I've ever seen being very well designed and assembled with quality cardboard materials; also included are a couple of colour foldouts containing all the lyrics in both English and Japanese. Unlike the mlps version of "Get Lucky" the sound quality here is much better and pretty decent. Also unlike "Get Lucky" which truth be told was just "Working For the Weekend" followed by filler, all the tracks here are a vast improvment in terms of songwriting as well as in the musicianship which is a sign of a band improving.

As purveyors of 80s-style hair-band rock Loverboy is pretty good providing competent renditions of the genre however when you compare them with their peers like Foreigner, Journey, Styx and even to the softer, commercial qualities of Ozzy Osbourne's Randy Rhodes years the quality of the tracks barely make it to the same planet. That said though oddly enough the first 4 tracks are pretty average but the next 5 are actually the best tracks on the album. Those old enough to know will understand when I say that Side B was a lot better than Side A. Those 5 tracks are so good they could actually be mistaken for Foreigner songs when they were at their peak. This is still a very fun listen for me and it'll certainly make it to my hi-fi whenever I get the craving for 80s soft rock nostalgia along with my Night Ranger and the 3 bands mentioned earlier albums.

Great mlps design, good sound quality and competent songwriting makes this a recommended release for fans and mlps collectors alike.

This is a great album. I had it many years ago and had to purchase it again. The song I bought it for is "Strike Zone." It is a hard charging piece of music that I love.

This album is awsome. Slightly more of a pop sound than before but still a great album. The keyboards sound wonderful. I seen them in concert back in 1996 and they still rocked the house. Let's all get together and bring back good rock music!

I used to love Loverboy back in the 80's. I thought they were going to become and remain huge. What they really were was a fad and this album was the beginning of the end for them.

I think this is actually a very good album, but the singles, "Queen Of The Broken Hearts" and "Hot Girls In Love," are definitely not the best songs. I think they were released as singles merely because they "sounded" like some of their other hits (most notably, "Working For The Weekend"). Most of the other songs on this album are way better than those two.

If you like classic Loverboy, I highly recommend this one.

This is simply another continuation of great music from a superb Canadian band. I grew up listening to these guys and I just saw them in Concert at Scobey, MT. They still know how to rock. The only problem with the concert was they didn't play Queen of the Broken Hearts which is without a doubt their all time best. They didn't do Strike zone either, but I can just pop in this great cd anytime I want and enjoy.

This is almost too easy-- like shooting fish in a barrel. Back in the early 80s, when Keep It Up was released, I thought it was great. "Hot Girls in Love" was the radio favorite, and I liked "Queen of the Broken Hearts" the best. Now, it all sounds like crap. The synthesizers sound cheesy, the vocals sound strained, and the music sounds like an average hard rock band being played through the speakers of a 1980s video arcade game or a mono television.

Loverboy's debut album was better. Sad to say, their later albums were even worse than Keep It Up.

Keep It Up? I suppose they couldn't.

ken32