- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- Bad Animals is the ninth studio album by Heart and one of their best performing on the charts, reaching #2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart.
Heart – Bad Animals (1987): Many women perform with their sisters in order to have company in otherwise all-male bands, and that is true of Heart, one of the most successful and longest-lived hard rock bands in history. Everyone thinks of lead vocalist Ann Wilson and her sister, guitarist and vocalist Nancy Wilson when they think of Heart; but actually, Heart began in Vancouver, British Columbia all the way back in 1963, when bass guitarist Steve Fossen and guitarist brothers Roger Fisher and Mike Fisher started a band initially called the Army that later took the name White Heart. The Wilson sisters became romantically involved with the Fisher brothers – Ann with Mike, and Nancy with Roger – and Nancy Wilson officially joined the band in 1974 followed shortly by Ann Wilson.
After Mike Fisher became the band’s engineer, keyboardist Howard Leese and drummer Michael Derosier rounded out the lineup. The first album by Heart, Dreamboat Annie was released in 1975 and is one of my favorite albums of the 1970’s. The album spawned two hit singles, “Magic Man” and “Crazy on You”; but it sounds even better as an album to these ears. Numerous albums followed, with hit singles that include “Barracuda”, “Dog and Butterfly”, “These Dreams”, “What About Love?”, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love to You”, and many more. Bad Animals is the ninth studio album by Heart and one of their best performing on the charts, reaching #2 on the Billboard 200 albums chart, #3 in Canada, and #7 in the U.K. The album’s four singles are all piled together at the beginning of Side 1, including their #1 hit “Alone”.