Wired for Sound

by Dave Thompson With the Love Songs compilation having just returned Cliff Richard to the top of the U.K. chart and I'm No Hero having maintained the quality of his last couple of studio records, hopes were high for Wired for Sound, his first new LP of the 1980s. And, for the most part, the album lived up to those expectations. One might cringe a little at the lyrics to the title track -- the man's a musician; of course he likes listening to music. There really was no need to write a song about the fact. "'Cos I Love That Rock 'n' Roll" betrays a similar sense of built-in redundancy. Elsewhere, though, Wired for Sound continues driving into fresh (for Cliff Richard) territory, even as songs like "Say You Don't Mind," "Summer Rain," and "Young Love" restate the moody balladic parameters that he always stalked. Certainly nobody could have expected him to cover a Wreckless Eric number, but "Broken Doll" (from Eric's Big Smash album) sounds great in his hands, and one can only regret that Richard never got the chance to handle "Whole Wide World" as well -- according to Wreckless, he wanted to, but only if he could change some of the lyrics. The writer rightly refused. Alan Tarney's production is sharp and, this being the early '80s, bang up to date -- an attribute that does, sadly, tend to date the album just a little today. But it's still an enjoyable outing, one signaling that Richard's creative star remained firmly in the ascendant.