Customer Reviews

You Can Tune a Piano But You Can't Tune a Fish

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

When I was in high school (class of 80!) my favorite classes were auto shop and electronics. One day in 1978 I worked on a guy's Jeep and took a peek inside his 8-track tape box. The guy had about 6 REO tapes and I thought "who are these guys?". I was a big Styx, Kansas, and Van Halen fan but never heard of them before. A few months later I helped a freind install a new Pioneer Supertuner 8-Track deck with Jensen tri-axel speakers, and we tested it out using his new tape - you guess it - their classic "Tuna" album! It sounded so great that I bought my own copy that night. It's been my favorite REO album ever since.

REO has always been a classic bar band "made good" at heart. At the time they were relentlessly touring across the mid-southwest while building up a following of die-hard fans. REO finally went platinum with thier 1977 Live album (sadly chopped up on CD - the Vinyl LP is still the definitive version), which set the stage for "Tuna", and 2 years later leading to a nationwide breakthrough with "Hi Infidelity".

The great things about this album - excellent songwriting from Cronin and Richrath, a wide variety of styles with tight musicanship, going from all-out rockers, sweet ballads, and midtempo pop-rock. After being unfocused for so many years, REO finally got it's act together on one album to become a great Album Rock band. REO was never ment to be a "Critic's Darling" - they were a band for teenagers and working class young adults who wanted to party and Rock!

Compared to the reverbed-to-death "Hi Infidelity" and "Good Trouble" LP's - the production of "Tuna" still sounds clean and well recorded. The new CD is a huge improvement in sound quality over the old CD that was released in the 80's. Toss the old one in the trash, or give it away and get this CD instead.

Listening to REO reminds me of great times in the Seventies when you could buy beer and cigarettes as a teenager, listen to music played by real musicans that wasnt sampled and pieced together on computers, and gettin' laid without the fear of HIV!

Made in CAN in 2000, Serial# EK-61613, Playing Time: 34 min.

Originally released back in 1978, this album (#8) shows a trend towards rockier melodies than its predecessor. Now remastered and re-issued at the same time as "Hi Infidelity", this album shows a band performing much more straight-ahead rock than the latter, but not quite as effective as on their ninth album, "Nine Lives".

This CD contains a few classics, like "Roll With Changes", "Time For Me To Fly" and "Say You Love Me Or Say Goodnight".

Up here in the Great White North, Sony has applied a sticker that reads "Digitally Remastered! Bonus Tracks!" Unfortunately, there are no bonus tracks.

If you're into the rockier side of the band and enjoy tracks like "Don't Let Him Go" from the "Hi Infidelity" album, "You Can Tune A Piano..." and "Nine Lives" (not to be confused with Aerosmith's) belong in your CD collection.

REO Speedwagon.... To me, their studio albums were never as good as the live performance. However, when this album came out they finally figured out how to capture the intensity. This is truly a great recording.

Every REO fan should have this in the collection.

Ok, so this was just a slick pop album and probably the hard-rock and art-rock snobs hated it. Musically, there's nothing original here, and lyrically there's probably nothing original either (how many more song about getting over disappearing love does the world need?). But damnit, slick pop or not, this is good stuff! When I'm in a REALLY bad mood, I put on the headphones and play this at maximum volume. This is one of the most listened-to albums in my collection (I must be in a bad mood pretty often). It rocks. Gary Richrath's guitar work is intense, showing that you can have fiery playing in pop music. And when Neal Doughty's keyboards poke their way up past the guitars, they add a rollicking bouncy feel that nonetheless remains consistent with the intense sound of the guitars. (Think of Jerry Lee Lewis and how much power he could pull out of a piano.)

This is also a great album because there's no "filler" in it. Every song is good.

Do yourself a favor. If you're not already familiar with this album but you've brushed off the band because of their later mushy stuff, then ignore the critics and don't worry about their other albums -- just give this a listen a few times.

For comparison, this is very different from the mushy, awful album High Infidelity. It has a lot in common with their live album "You Get What You Play For", which I also highly recommend if you like this "hard pop" style.

Bought this album on LP from a second-hand record store on a whim. The only REO I knew beforehand was 'Roll With The Changes', 'Time For Me To Fly', and 'Ridin The Storm Out', and this album turned me into a huge REO fan. Other than the original Boston LP, there has been no other album on which I have loved every song as much as I have loved the songs on You Can Tune A Piano But You Can't Tuna Fish.

I remember getting Tuna Fish as my second REO album. The first one that I got was Nine Lives and was so turned on by it that I went out and bought Tuna Fish. Initially I was disappointed being that Tuna Fish is not as "rocking" as Nine Lives. After listening to it a few times I began to like it...after listening to it a bunch more times I loved it! While not as hard as Nine Lives- Tuna Fish shows a more melodic and acoustical side of REO. It still rocks- check out Runnin' Blind, Lucky For You, and the jammin' Gary Richrath instrumental- The Unidentified Flying Tuna Trot. But this album favors more of the softer, melodic Kevin Cronin songs such as Time for me to Fly and Blazin' your own Trail Again-not that there is anything wrong with this. Tuna Fish shows how diverse REO could really be- they could do blistering rock and slow ballads and everything in between with equal effectiveness. Tuna Fish is a keeper!!!

this is one of my all time favorite albums. I've been a professional keyboard/piano player in rock bands for over 20 years. Let's face it, there just aren't as many "keyboard gods" out there as there are guitar players. Anyway, in 1979 this album (and specifically Neil Doughty's piano playing) inspired me, a 13 year old kid, to play piano in a rock band and I've been doing it ever since. I love this album!

Trying to get everything I had in the late seventies through the mid eighties that I used listen to as I cruised around in my 72 AMX and this one is a must. This is a classic for that time period and a must have which goes along very well with Ted Nugent- Ted Nugent, Kansas, Styx, early Journey (Wheel in the Sky), Bon Scott's ACDC, Head East, Sweet, ELO, Pat Travers, Fog Hat, Boston, BOC, and a couple most of you never heard of that are real classics Greame Edge Band's Kick off your Muddy Boots and Moon Martin. All are simply outstanding. Getting back to REO, Gary Richrath had his own sound on the guitar which I would say is the true signature of the bad. Not enough has been said about Neil Droughty and his ability to play the piano and everyone knows what Kevin was good for. That three-some were the nucleus of REO like Dennis Deyoung, Tommy Shaw, and James Young for Styx and Roger Boyd, Mike Summerfield and John Schlitt for Head East all really great bands. If you are looking for bands of the late seventies and early eighties these are some of the best. Let keep putting these and more onto CDs, bring them all back.

Truly a composite displaying all of REO's strong points, great guitar and keyboards! An absolute MUST-HAVE for any REO fan!

Hard-rocking piano and guitar! All the songs on this album are pure rock and roll. From Time for Me to Fly to Lucky for You...all the songs are terrific. Roll with the Changes is a great rock and roll song. Unfortunately they did just that to stay in the pop rock mainstream with the Hi Infidelity album. But this album is REO Speedwagon at their rocking best.