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Album Review by Bradley Christensen Survivor – Eye Of The Tiger Record Label: Scotti Bros Records Release Date: February 1982

The idea of the “one-hit-wonder” is always fascinating to me, and I’m sure I’ve talked about this same thing before, but I wanted to talk about it again, since I’m doing that thing where I get into a ton of bands that are known for one big song, ultimately seeing if the album these songs are on are, well, any good. I did that a lot when I got into 80s new wave last summer, and that’s what I’m doing now, but it makes sense, though. Personally, I feel as though music was its peak during the 1980s, but that’s not because the quality of the music is so much better (at least compared to today). A lot of wonderful, amazing, and influential albums came out, of course, but I’m talking about that more so in the sense that music was in a very fruitful and fertile state. Music was going into many different directions, ideas, and sounds. Experimentation was happening everywhere. Pop music was starting to be defined, but it was in its new wave and synthpop days (way before what we’d define pop music as now). Heavy metal was going into a bunch of different directions, ultimately dropping the blues influences of the late 70s. Speed metal, thrash metal, NWOBHM (new wave of British heavy metal), and early hints of black metal and death metal were creeping up in the first half of the decade, while those two styles would rear their heads by the last few years of it. Hard-rock was taking elements of pop and new wave into its sound, especially with something like Van Halen’s 1984 being a perfect example of rock and pop mixing together. That, in part, lead to the popularity of glam-metal (or hair-metal, depending on what you want to call it), because of how accessible these bands were. Don’t even get me started on punk, pop-punk, hardcore, post-punk, industrial, and tons more stuff, because those other styles got their starts in the 1980s (well, punk and pop-punk started in the 1970s, but the 80s took it even further).

Music was just a great melting pot during the 1980s, even though a lot of people just think it’s only composed of 80s pop and new wave. They’re not totally wrong, since 80s music is defined by new wave, but a lot of other stuff came out. Another interesting part of the 80s is that the amount of one-hit-wonders, and like I said right in the first sentence, I find the idea of these bands / songs to be incredibly interesting. While I think the 1990s wins in terms of having the most random songs chart highly, and that decade, too, was very diverse, interesting, and fertile, especially during the first few years, because new wave on its way out and grunge / alt-rock / college-rock hadn’t taken hold yet, 1980s had the most one-hit-wonders. These are bands and artists that you only remember for one song, and most of the time, you don’t even know who they are. You’ve heard their big hit, but you’re always like, “Who does that?” Or, if you’re like me, you’re like, “Oh, that band does that? I had no idea!” There are tons of iconic songs that you’ve listened to, but you’d have no idea who did them, and that’s kind of understandable. Because music was so fertile during that time frame, so much stuff came out, and people just got bombarded with stuff. It’s not like today, where you can find anything you want on Amazon, iTunes, Bandcamp, or Spotify, because people didn’t have the luxury of the Internet. A lot of stuff got thrown to the wayside, and the reason I find these songs / bands interesting is that a lot of them are quite good, sometimes even amazing, but they’re very underrated and not all that well-known. It was amazing to go through bunches of 80s new wave / synth-pop bands, and hearing how wonderfully underrated these bands are, because people passed on the whole album. If they didn’t pass on the album, the album surprisingly did well, but people forgot about it over time.

A good example of an album that people forgot about is Men Without Hats’ 1982 LP, Rhythm Of Youth. These guys brought us “The Safety Dance,” a silly little tune that was supposedly written in response to people “moshing” at their show, but that’s all that people know them for. I mean, I love the song, and it’s an 80s classic, but the whole album is great. It’s catchy, fun, energetic, and weird synth-pop / new wave that sounds both dated and timeless at the same time. I love the album, and it’s such an underrated record, but people will always remember them for The Safety Dance. That’s a good case of where a one-hit-wonder deserved a lot better, but for every case of a band that deserved a lot better treatment than they got, there’s another one that doesn’t deserve better. I always hate talking about these types of bands, because they released one really great song, but the rest of the album just doesn’t measure. That’s where hard-rock / pop-rock band Survivor comes into play. You might know this band for “Eye Of The Tiger,” which is the Rocky III theme song (that’s how most people heard of this song, anyway), but it became a generic staple of sports movies and shows. It’s a damn great song, honestly, and it’s one of the best of the 1980s. It’s very energetic, anthemic, and inspiring. This is where Fall Out Boy were most likely influenced by a couple of their biggest hits, “Champion” and “Centuries.” This song, like those, has that “we can do anything” feeling to it, and it’s a great song. I absolutely love it. It’s one of those songs that most people seem to love, and you can get pumped to, because it’s got that feeling to it. Most people also have no idea who does it, or have heard another song from these guys, but I’d be lying if I said that’s a bad thing.

I picked up their 1982 LP, Eye Of The Tiger, and I don’t care for it much. You’d think this album would fare better with the album being the same name as the title track, but not really. There’s a big problem with a lot of bands, and albums, that fall into the one-hit-wonder spectrum, and this album really has that – the best song is the first one. That makes sense, though, since that’s what record labels and bands want to capitalize on. The biggest single is usually first, so people can start the album with a song they recognize, but that’s a problem when the rest of the album just doesn’t measure up. It really doesn’t here. That’s for two reasons, and one of them isn’t their fault, necessarily. The first reason, and the main reason why this album doesn’t do much for me, is that it’s just boring and generic. “Eye Of The Tiger” is fairly formulaic, simplistic, and nothing groundbreaking, either, but it’s fun, energetic, and intense. The rest of the album just doesn’t do anything that great, or that fun, and that leads me to the second thing that bothers me, and it’s that nothing really measures up to that song. I wouldn’t have minded if nothing on the album measured up to “Eye Of The Tiger” if the songs themselves were still interesting, unique, or worthwhile, but they really aren’t. Even on the albums from a lot of one-hit-wonders that I’ve heard, the rest of the songs are still pretty good, and you can understand why people latched onto the song, versus the whole album. This album has one great song, and a lot of “meh” songs.” I mean, nothing sounds bad on here, inherently speaking. Everything sounds fine, but the rest of the album is very generic, bland, and just forgettable. This is a good example of a band that’s rightfully a one-hit-wonder, since “Eye Of The Tiger” is a great song, but the rest of the album doesn’t deliver whatsoever, unfortunately. It’s not horrible whatsoever, but sometimes an album being so milquetoast is worse than being actively bad.

#survivor #eye of the tiger #rocky iii #rock #pop #arena rock #80s music #80s rock #1980s #one hit wonder

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