High Adventure

by Stephen Thomas ErlewineWell, if Duran Duran decided to rip off Raiders of the Lost Ark, why not Kenny Loggins? After all, the swashbuckling cover to High Adventure fits this album, since it finds him relying equally on rockers and melodic pop/rock. The album kicks off with Loggins' hardest-rocking single, "Don't Fight It," a surging arena-rocker duet with Steve Perry. This signals that the rest of the record will be harder than his previous record and that's true to a certain extent, since this doesn't just rock on occasion, it also has his best ballads and mid-tempo charmers. In other words, it's his best album, showcasing all sides of his personality effectively. "Don't Fight It" is a great single, but the best moment here is "Heart to Heart," the second of two pop classics Loggins cut as a solo artist. Here, he has a great mid-tempo groove, a good lyric and an indelible melody that is soft rock at its finest. The rest of the album may not match this height -- most of the genre didn't -- but it's all strong (though it's awful strange that "Heartlight," a tribute to the children's foundation Heartlight, has the oddest melody he's ever written -- an ominous march that just gets creepier when the children's choir pops up at the end). Celebrate Me Home may be more consistent, but this is the most diverse record he ever cut, blessed by fine studio craft and a nice reliance on pseudo-new wave production techniques.