REO Speedwagon
High Infidelity

The Soundwaves Vinyl of the Week is High Infidelity by REO Speedwagon.

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Jason Landry, contributor
 

This album came out toward the end of the year in 1980 and enjoyed radio airplay on a few tracks including “Take It On The Run”, “In Your Letter” and the band’s first number one hit, “Keep On Loving You”. High Infidelity was the biggest selling album of 1981 and in total, the album was certified Diamond selling over ten million copies in the U.S. alone. 

 

The album’s title is a take on the In High Fidelity (Hi-Fi) label that was placed on many vinyl records in that time, meaning that the vinyl had the highest quality recording that you could get. Whoever designed the cover art and text did two interesting things: they used a different font for the letters Hi Fi in the words High Infidelity hinting back to the original term, and you have a guy putting a record on a turntable on the album’s cover while a scantily clad woman is applying lipstick—a tongue-in-cheek nod to the word infidelity.

 

Let me put the song “Keep On Loving You” into perspective, but first I need to hit the button on then way-back machine. This was a popular ballad that even four years later when I attended my first 6th grade dance, the DJ’s were still playing it alongside a newer REO Speedwagon track, “Can't Fight This Feeling”, which turned out to be their second number one hit. We slow danced to both of these songs. In fact, it was me who brought the 45rpm vinyl to our school dance and I still have that exact copy to this day. 

 

Can you imagine that REO Speedwagon had already put out nine studio albums before their first number one hit? It’s not like it is today where a song streaming on the internet on some random social media platform can go viral overnight. It goes to show that hard work does pays off when you are persistent and have a particular goal in sight.

 

Music can have a lasting impression on people as it did with me, especially when you haven’t heard a particular song for a long time. It transports you back to a time and place when things were simpler. When I saw this clean copy of High Infidelity at my local record store, I had to buy it. A remastered version was released in 2024 for those of you who are looking for a new copy.