CoronaVinyl Day 335 (S): Emotions in Motion by Billy Squier

For an explanation of CoronaVinyl, click here.

Today's CoronaVinyl category is "S," and I listened to Billy Squier's third studio album, 1982's Emotions in Motion.

Squier got his start in the Boston area and formed the rock band Piper in the mid '70s, but the band broke up before making it big.  Squier then signed a solo deal with Capitol Records, releasing his debut album, The Tale of the Tape, in 1979.  His sophomore effort, 1981's Don't Say No, proved to be a big hit, reaching #5 on the Billboard album charts and producing three of his most well-known songs, "The Stroke," "Lonely is the Night," and "My Kinda Lover."

Emotions in Motion followed the next year, with just as much success.  The album also went to #5 on the Billboard album chart, and the song "Everybody Wants You," which went to #32 on the Billboard Hot 100 and topped the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart for six weeks.  The title track -- on which Queen's Freddy Mercury and Roger Taylor sing backing vocals -- was also a minor hit, reaching #68 on the Billboard Hot 100.  The videos for both got heavy rotation on MTV.  Eventually the album went double platinum in the U.S.

But just as MTV made stars of artists and bands who might otherwise not have achieved big success, it also sometimes did the opposite to artists and bands who should have been bigger, and Squier falls into the latter category.  Squier was a great guitarist with a voice that harkened Robert Plant's, so he was seen as a hard rocker, and rightly so.  The song "Rock Me Tonite" off of Squier's follow-up album, 1984's Signs of Life, proved to be his most successful on the Billboard Hot 100, going to #15.  However, in one of the most famous gaffes of the video era, the video for "Rock Me Tonite" features Squier wearing a pink tank top while prancing and dancing spasmodically around a loft apartment.  It was not well received, for a guy who was supposed to be a rocker, and Squier's success effectively ended there, as it would be the last of his songs to reach higher than #58 on the Billboard Hot 100.

But hey, Emotions in Motion is a solid early '80s hard rock album.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Emotions in Motion"
The title track is a soulful rocker, in the vein of mid '70s Zeppelin.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "It Keeps You Rockin'"
The second side starts off with a nice hard rock track, with some impassioned vocals from Squier in the verses.