Album review: LOVERBOY – Wildside (Remaster)

Rock Candy Records [release date: 25.03.22]

Loverboy’s fifth studio album, again produced by the maestro, Bruce Fairbairn (RIP), has been remastered and reissued recently by Rock Candy Records.

When Fairbairn, Bob Rock and Mike Fraser are handling production, engineering and mixing, you know just what to expect. 3 dimensional rock songs just leap off the page…… Cultivated blasts of neatly orchestrated, nicely polished hard rock. With good tunes.

No doubt the label’s remastering boys and girls had the easiest gig ever.

On the other hand, there’s always the suspicion of a rockband in decline when they bring in outside writers. Collaborations with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Taylor Rhodes, Bryan Adams, Alfie Zappacosta, Brian (Too Loud) McLeod and song doctor, Todd Cerney pepper the tracklist. In fact only two songs are written by the band solely.
Doesn’t make them bad people of course.

The Bon Jovi/Sambora/Cerney/Dean/Reno opener, ‘Notorious’ was clearly the product of some focused songwriting. It’s got “Arena Rock Anthem” written through it like a stick of rock, even if the lyrics are so last century. The single version cracked Billboard’s North American charts – the USA and Canada – and stayed there for 14 weeks.
Otherwise, only the hooky ‘Love Will Rise Again’ and the jaunty, eighties-in-aspic ‘Hometown Hero’ get close to previous high watermarks.

Ultimately, relatively poor sales (gold v previous 4 albums’ platinum) led to to personal tensions within the band, and it broke up. A sad, if overly familiar cliché.

Wildside, the album, may not have set the charts alight, but it added to a significant if slim volume of Loverboy legacy albums. A body of work that just keeps on contributing to periodic “Best Of…” outings. ***

Review by Brian McGowan


Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

Since early 2020 Josh has been entertaining us with exclusive monthly live sessions, streamed via Facebook.

In 2023 he signed a recording deal with Sony in Canada and released a new single on 15 September.

Josh Taerk Sunday Sessions 2024

Latest session: Sunday 25 February
Next session: Sunday 14 April

Check out videos here: https://www.facebook.com/getreadytorockradio



David Randall presents a weekly show on Get Ready to ROCK! Radio, Sundays at 22:00 GMT, repeated on Mondays and Fridays), when he invites listeners to ‘Assume The Position’. The show signposts forthcoming gigs and tours and latest additions at getreadytorock.com. First broadcast on 3 March 2024.


UK Blues Broadcaster of the Year (2020 and 2021 Finalist) Pete Feenstra presents his weekly Rock & Blues Show on Tuesday at 19:00 GMT as part of a five hour blues rock marathon “Tuesday is Bluesday at GRTR!”. The show is repeated on Wednesdays at 22:00, Fridays at 20:00). This show was first broadcast 5 March 2024.

How to Listen Live?

Click the programming image at the top of the page (top right of page if using desktop)

Listen via Windows Media Player. Click or tap here and “open file”
Listen via other media player (eg. VLC) Click or tap here and “open file”

Get Ready to ROCK! Radio is also in iTunes under Internet Radio/Classic Rock
Listen in via the Tunein app and search for “Get Ready to ROCK!” and save as favourite.

More information and links at our radio website where you can listen again to shows via the presenter pages: getreadytorockradio.com


Power Plays w/c 18 March 2024

GYPSY’S KISS We’ve Come To Play
FM Out Of The Blue (Frontiers)
SHOTGUN MISTRESS Shot Down (indie)
ATTIC THEORY Violent Delight (indie)
FLOYA Yume (FiXT)
SAHAJI Tell Me All Your Feelings (indie)

Featured Albums w/c 18 March 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003-2023
12:00-13:00 LEAVES’ EYES Myths Of Fate (AFM Records)
14:00-16:00 HOLLY LERSKI Sweet Decline (indie)


To see our Tweets you need to be logged in to a Twitter account



Popular (last 10 days)


This entry was posted in ALBUM REVIEWS, ALBUM REVIEWS (Mobile), ALL POSTS and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply