Good Trouble (1982)



  1. Keep the Fire Burnin'
  2. Sweet Time
  3. Girl With the Heart of Gold
  4. Every Now and Then
  5. I'll Follow You
  6. The Key
  7. Back in My Heart Again
  8. Let's Be-Bop
  9. Stillness of the Night
  10.Good Trouble


 

If there was ever a textbook case of a band trying to clone their own success, Good Trouble is it. And honestly, can you blame them? After a decade of scraping by with little more than modest recognition, REO Speedwagon finally hit it big with Hi Infidelity, and suddenly they were playing arenas and selling records by the truckload. Changing course at this point? That would’ve taken more guts than most bands could muster. One look at the album cover says everything—it’s literally the morning after the night before, a direct continuation of the last record’s aesthetic. Subtlety was not the goal here.

Musically? It’s pretty much the same game plan. Punchy radio-ready rockers, polished mid-tempo numbers, and the requisite power ballads all make a return. Critics, never really fans of the band to begin with, wasted no time tearing this one apart for its lack of originality. And while Good Trouble didn’t come close to matching the sales of Hi Infidelity, it’s not for lack of trying. Song-for-song, it holds up surprisingly well—and for fans who still had Hi Infidelity in heavy rotation, this record hit many of the same satisfying notes.

That said, there are a few reasons why this one hasn’t aged quite as well. For starters, the album kicks off with Keep the Fire Burnin' and Sweet Time, both of which sound suspiciously like retooled versions of Roll With the Changes and Time for Me to Fly from 1978’s You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can't Tuna Fish. It’s not exactly a knock—they’re both solid tracks—but it’s hard to ignore the sense of déjà vu. And despite their catchiness, neither song really stuck around in the band’s live shows or later greatest hits packages, which says something about how they resonated over time.

Bruce Hall contributes a couple of tracks this time around, as he usually does, and while both are perfectly enjoyable, they don’t do themselves any favors in the lyrics department. Let's Be-Bop sounds like something you’d expect to hear in a Saturday morning cartoon, but it’s a tight little rocker that keeps the momentum going. The title track, Good Trouble, is even more cringe-worthy from a lyrical standpoint, and you have to wonder if anyone thought to run these lyrics through a filter before hitting record.

Still, there’s something undeniably fun about this whole album. The band wasn’t trying to make any deep statements here—they were having a good time, riding high on their newfound fame, and keeping the party going. In a way, Good Trouble is the sound of a band still on the rollercoaster and enjoying every minute of it, even if they’re a little unsure of what’s around the next bend. It might not have matched Hi Infidelity in terms of chart success, but for anyone who loved that album, this one feels like a natural continuation—and there’s nothing wrong with that.





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