• AllMyVinyl #12
• Band: Aldo Nova
• Album Title: Aldo Nova
• Release Date: 18 Jan 1982
• Date purchased: Lost to time
• Location purchased: Lost to time, maybe Sam Goody
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

One thing I should get out of the way first.  As I sit down to listen to this album in 2024, I cannot recall a single song off this album by title EXCEPT “Fantasy”.  If you were around in 1982 and listened to rock radio, there’s no way you could *NOT* know Fantasy.  It was a massive song.  I mean so much so, he’s unjustly labeled as a one hit wonder.  Most people can’t name more Aldo Nova hits, but they’re there (Blood on the Bricks, Monkey on Your Back).   But it all comes back to his first album in 1982 with “Fantasy”.  He never put out a song that got more attention than that one.  Kind of hard to bounce back from your most well known song first.

I bought this vinyl back in 1982.  I don’t remember in 2024 exactly when or where, but it was likely Sam Goody, which I bought a lot of albums from around that time.  This was one of the albums rescued from my mom’s basement in 2023.  It’s in decent condition.  Looks like 42 year old vinyl, but plays well enough – very few pops, and they’re minor.

The thing about this album I recall from the past was I’d listen to it, get a few songs in and go “Man, these aren’t as good as Fantasy” and go back to Fantasy and play that a few more times.  As years developed, it became one of those albums that I only ever listen to a single song.  Which is a shame as there’s other good stuff here.

The other single was “Ball and Chain” which is an early 80’s power ballad (as was Can’t Stop Lovin You).  If you like those, you’d like that.  Heart to Heart – while it has a bit of a keyboard riff running through it, it has a great guitar solo I really liked.  Foolin’ Yourself which leads off side 2 says it was a single on the Wikipedia page, but I don’t recall that happening.  The song Under the Gun’s main riff sounds an awful lot like “Fantasy” – thought that was an odd choice to make a song on the same album sound a lot like one of the other songs.  I liked the song “You’re My Love”.  It’s a slower song, but isn’t power ballad slow, I liked the vibe there.  The last song (See the Light) on the album starts off sounding like a keyboard song I wouldn’t like, but ends up with some great riffing that I really did enjoy…   I mean none of these are bad, there’s good stuff here, but….

Bottom line is this album is “Fantasy” and a bunch of other songs.  None of them are bad by any stretch (some are excellent), but when your material is dwarfed by the biggest individual song of one’s career, it’s hard to find something to write about the other tracks that make them sound really good.  The album is a slice of what pop rock was in early 1982, and if you’re into that era of music, you’ll like what’s on here.