Bob Seger's "Against the Wind" LP

I posted in another thread that I really didn't start listening to pop music a lot until about 1980. For me, that year happened to be a fantastic year for music. One of my favorite albums for that year was Bob Seger's "Against the Wind".

I don't recall hearing the first single "Fire Lake" that much on the radio station I listened to at the time, but when the title track took off, I was hooked. In late summer, "You'll Accomp'ny Me" became the third top 20 single, and in the fall the rocking "Horizontal Bop" came close to the top 40. Most of the "album cuts" are great on this one too.

I remember buying the album that Labor Day weekend for $4.99 on special, and it really got my started into buying pop-rock albums and singles. I think the cover art is really nice.

The album was Seger's first No. 1 album, and spent 110 weeks on the Billboard album chart.

Anyone else here a fan of it?

 

I love the hits of course, but "Long Twin Silver Line" is a fantastic album track, one of his best rockers. It used to get quite a bit of air play back in the day but I hadn't heard it since then until last year when I reacquainted myself with this album.

 

I love almost all of Bob's output, but the title track from AGAINST THE WIND is by far my favorite.

Talk about Bob personally guiding you on a trip down memory lane... One that we've all walked before. What brilliant and emotional storytelling in this one.

 

Not really a BS fan, but I respect that album quite a bit. I think he seems kind of like an American Van Morrison on it, in some ways. He definitely has soul, and he's a good musician. I can't live with some of the cheese factor on stuff like "Old Time Rock And Roll" and "Kathmandu" though...(and that applies to "Betty Lou" from ATW as well)

 

Speaking of Van Morrison, for those who don't know, Bob swiped that "Let the cowboy ride..." bit in "Against the Wind" from a Van song called "Beautiful Obsession". He even sings it the same way. It doesn't diminish my opinion of the Seger song at all, in fact it's quite effective. Just thought I'd pass that on for informational purposes.

 

here is the inevitable question.....

what is the best sounding pressing out there (vinyl)?

Oh heck....if a CD is best, thats cool too.

 

I think the "Wally" cut one is supposed to be best.

 

thanks! I will keep an eye out

 

I found a used / like new Against The Wind 45 yesterday with WALLY in the dead wax. I think I'm going back today and picking it up. It's worth $1.00 just for sentimental reasons.

 

Didn't it bother anyone that it seemed to follow the formula of Night Moves too closely?

 

Not me. I thought Night Moves, Stranger and Wind was one of the best hat tricks in music.

 

great album and the wally sounds great!!!

 

Yes! Almost song for song (and not as good).

 

Absolutely. This album was a major disappointment for me. I thought there were too many mid-tempo songs, and the rockers ("Betty Lou," "Horizontal Bop") were not interesting.

The Distance restored my interest in Seger, however.

 

I am also a fan of the Distance. when I got back into vinyl that was one I sought out.

 

Me too. I listen to "The Distance" a lot more than "Against The Wind".

Pat

 

I have the one with Wally in the deadwax,it sounds good to me.

 

This is one of my less favorite Seger albums, though the title track is among my favorite Seger songs. But I don't get how it is following a "Night Moves" album formula. The feel of the two albums are very different to me. The Robert Vosgien remaster sounds excellent and my favorite of LP and CD issues, but it does have some compression if you're phobic about that.

- Joe

 

The Wally cut is stellar. I was fortunate enough to find Wally cuts of several of Seger's LP's and this one is right up there with the best. Keep your eyes peeled for one!

 

I heard the song "Fire Lake" on the radio when it first came out. I thought he was saying Prior Lake (The town I lived in), so I liked it a lot. I bet I heard it a thousand times before spring hit.

 

30th anniversary

Just bumping this up again to recognize the 30th anniversary of this album:

I consider this to be one of the best albums of the ‘80s. Seger had been recording for years and gained a bigger following with each release. By the mid-70s, his “Live Bullet” album was a consistent seller and had gone platinum. Widely considered to be his big breakthrough, 1976’s “Night Moves” finally put him in the top 10 on the album chart, giving Seger his biggest hit single yet in the title track. Next up was 1978’s “Stranger in Town”. The hit-filled album cracked the top 5 and produced four top 40 singles, including “Still the Same”, which was the album’s highest-charter.

Seger stated in an interview that if he took a little of the edge off, he thought he had a shot at No. 1. That’s exactly what he did with “Against the Wind” – an album of catchy rockers and mid-tempo ballads he recorded with the Silver Bullet Band and Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section. The album was released near the end of February in 1980. The cover art is striking – a nice blue background with horses running in the foreground. It won that year’s Grammy for Best Album Package.

Here’s the track listing:

Side 1
The Horizontal Bop – 4:00
You’ll Accomp’ny Me – 3:58
Her Strut – 3:52
No Man’s Land – 3:41
Long Twin Silver Line – 4:15

Side 2
Against the Wind – 5:32
Good For Me – 4:01
Betty Lou’s Getting Out Tonight – 2:53
Fire Lake – 3:32
Shining Brightly – 4:25

The first single was “Fire Lake”, backed with “Long Twin Silver Line”. It entered the top 40 in early February 1980, eventually peaking at No. 6. Next was the title track, edited down to 3:45 for single release, backed with “No Man’s Land”. It rose quickly, and peaked at No. 5 in early summer – the first time Seger had back-to-back top 10 singles. The third single was “You’ll Accomp’ny Me”, edited to 3:36 and backed with “Betty Lou’s Getting Out Tonight”. It climbed to No. 14 in early fall. The fourth single was “Horizontal Bop”, backed with “Her Strut”. It peaked at No. 42 and was the first rock n roll single after three ballads. All four singles were released with beautiful picture sleeves, although “Horizontal Bop” is harder to find than the others.

The album started strongly, debuting on the Billboard chart at No. 20 in early March. By the second week it had shot into the top 10, and by the third week was already at No. 2. After several weeks in the runner-up spot, it finally pushed its way to No. 1 in May, knocking out Pink Floyd’s “The Wall” after its 15-week run on top. “Against the Wind” itself spent six weeks at No. 1, several months in the top 10, sold over 4 million copies and was one of the top albums of the year. It would go on to spend 110 weeks on the Billboard album chart, re-charting briefly in late 1982 with the release of studio follow-up “The Distance”. The album that knocked it out from the top spot was Billy Joel’s “Glass Houses”.

While this album was still in the top 10, he had toured and was recording his live album “Nine Tonight”, which was released the following year. That album was largely recorded in Boston and Detroit during summer-fall 1980.

To date, this is still one of my favorite albums. It was the first rock album I bought back on Labor Day weekend in 1980, and really started getting me into top 40/rock music that year.

Anyone else have any comments/memories?

 

I've never been a big Seger fan, but this was right around the time I began paying attention to Top 40 music as well, and I distinctly remember hearing "Fire Lake" on the radio when it was new. At the time, I didn't really know who Bob Seger was. I didn't really get exposed to his mid/late '70s material until I began listening to an FM rock station a few years later.

Speaking of which: "Her Strut" and "Betty Lou's Getting Out Tonight" must have been AOR airplay hits, even though they were never released as A-sides, because I know I've heard them on FM rock/classic rock stations over the years. I still hear "Her Strut" on classic rock radio today, along with "Against The Wind". The other once-popular tracks from the album seem to get played only occasionally at best.

That's a testament to Seger's popularity/importance, as the '80s "golden age of U.S. picture sleeves" wasn't yet in full effect. The number of chart singles coming with picture sleeves at that point was still fairly small, much less than it would be three or four years later. Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, who I see as appealing to a similar audience, also began getting picture sleeves for virtually all of their singles around this time frame.

That's pretty impressive by the chart standards of the pre-Soundscan era, when albums rarely debuted high on the charts and almost always took at least a few weeks to climb into the upper reaches of the chart. In a typical year in the '80s, I'd bet that no more than a half-dozen albums would make their chart debut in the top 20.

Mine was The Long Run by the Eagles...

 

Just bumping this up to go hand in hand with the Bob Seger album by album thread.

 

Have always loved ATW since I heard it in the early eighties and it still stays one of my all time favorites... for some reason I like it more than any other Seger's album. Unfortunately I am very little familiar with his pre-Night Moves catalogue, except for some songs on Live Bullet.

 

I would love to have this title in SACD......a wonderful album.