She doesn't like the tough guys
They think that they can do anything they please
But they're gonna get a surprise
When she brings them to their knees
There are records that illuminate the career of a band almost without warning, arriving like meteorites to flood their musical planet with highly nourishing water, capable of instantly generating new life and bypassing even the fateful primordial soup. This is the case of “High Infidelity”, the ninth performance of the Americans REO Speedwagon, an album that brought the group led by Kevin Cronin (vocals, guitar and keyboard) suddenly towards a formula Adult oriented rock largely very different from the hard rock revealed on average in eight records produced during the 70s. Starting with a cover that is already a whole program, with the famous shot that shows an adultery that has just taken place in what appears to be a hotel room or the room of a skyscraper.
High infidelity, therefore. An evidently double meaning, as it first of all explains the aforementioned detachment from the more muscular riffs of the past, in favor of pop phrasings fueled for the occasion by magnetic keyboards, very sensual solos and amiably pleasant singing.
To iconographically underline the band's liberating streak, there is also an analyst's couch on which Cronin's relational troubles are expressed, for a scene that opens the way to the video clip of the hit “Keep on Loving You”, the first single from “High Infidelity”, written abruptly by the same frontman during a difficult period of one's love life, and enhanced on a melodic level by the epic solo of the unforgettable Gary Richrath, who passed away in 2015. It is a ballad that contains all the stereotypes ofinstant classic of the 80s, first performed by Cronin on the piano shortly after discovering that he had been cheated on by his wife: “I entered the rehearsal room and sat down at the piano, something I rarely do because I'm a guitarist, and I started playing. The guys in the band looked at me as if I came from another planet. Everyone immediately understood that I was very passionate about that song, so much so that Gary approached and connected his guitar to the amplifier. A moment later, the record was at number one in the charts and everyone was calling 'Keep on Loving You' was a power ballad and they were acting like we had a success strategy that made this song possible, when in reality it was just an accident,” Cronin said at the time.
The genesis of the group's name is also curious, chosen after Doughty saw the theme song for the REO Speed Wagon truck designed in 1915 by Ransom Eli Olds written on a blackboard, which instead of being pronounced in a single word, as recommended by the car manufacturer, therefore “REE-oh”, ended up being exclaimed by the band with every single letter, therefore “REO”. The first performance with such improbability moniker It also took place at a Zeta Beta Tau fraternity party, which was followed by several covers of songs by the Youngbloods and Moby Grape performed by REO in the bars of their university campus, for a start from brat pack in its pure state.
“High Infidelity” is a simply perfect album from the first to the last of the ten songs that compose it, so much so that it reached number one on Billboard for fifteen weeks, with ten million copies sold in the United States. While in the United Kingdom it will reach number six, a step which represents an excellent result for the American rock arena, given that the genre has never taken root much in those parts. “It was a real leap into the void. For years we worked hard, with a slow and gradual growth”, keyboardist Doughty said in several interviews about the album's release. While drummer Alan Gratzer went even higher: “Then 'High Infidelity' came along and the curve skyrocketed to the top. It was hard to believe. All of a sudden, we were packing baseball stadiums and people were stealing hats off our heads.”
However, it was above all the singles that sent the Speedwagon of American pop rock into orbit, namely, in addition to the aforementioned “Keep On Loving You”, “Take It on the Run”, “Don't Let Him Go” and “In Your Letter”. The penultimate song is the song that opens the dance of a milestone LP for aor and rock as a whole, as it proves how it is always and in any case possible to combine, without falling into kitsch, the “hard” spirit with a softer approach, mostly devoted to timeless melody, capable of sticking in the head and never coming out. After all, Neal Doughty's synth line is still fascinating today, an authentic miracle combined with Richrath's incendiary riffs that amplify the performance, while Cronin's singing becomes as eager for pleasure as it is damned desperate.
Equally irresistible is the passage of “Follow My Heart”, written by Richrath and the second guitarist Tom Kelly, another brilliant pearl with the refrain and the inevitable solo that will forever echo in the majestic American arenas and beyond. The carefree “In Your Letter”, composed by Gary alone and emphasized by the piano, is instead hilarious and more devoted to certain constructs typical of surf rock. sixties by Cronin, who adds spice between one note and another. Among the songs to sing at the top of your lungs, there is certainly “Take It On the Run”, the other ballad, or power balladif you prefer, of a disc without drops. And again the irreverent “Touch Guys”, which targets men who are only apparently tough, typical of the strictly American imagination eightiesin short, those all studs and tattoos, which however melt like cooked apples at the first romantic or merely sexual misfortune.
What can we say about the mischievous “Out of Season” or the only track sung by bassist Bruce Hall, “Someone Tonight”, with the inevitable choruses in the background and the guitars that eagerly intertwine between one verse and another?
Finally “I Wish You Were There”, written by Cronin with Gratzer, for yet another love dedication in a rock key, all impossible promises and broken dreams.
The success of “High Infidelity” will remain practically a success for the band unique. The subsequent “Good Trouble”, released in 1982, had in fact a vague commercial appeal thanks to the hit “Keep the Fire Burnin'”, while “Wheels Are Turnin'”, released in 1984, replicated the path of the previous one with another top ten hit: “Can't Fight This Feeling”. Flashes of light alternating with breakups, flashbacks, new falls, tours with friends Styx and Journey, farewells and even a Christmas album in 2009, “Not So Silent Night…Christmas with REO Speedwagon”. Only on March 7, 2026 did REO Speedwagon reunite with Cronin, Doughty, Hall and Gratzer to inaugurate an exhibition honoring Richrath at the Peoria Riverfront Museum in Illinois. A reunion exciting for a band that has written an absolutely memorable (and in some ways melodically eternal) page in the overseas rock macrocosm.
05/07/2026
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
