Sports is the third album by American rock band Huey Lewis and the News, released on September 15, 1983. It reached number one on the Billboard 200 on June 29, 1984, and catapulted the band to international fame. The album has been certified 7× Platinum by the RIAA. Sports was ranked number 2 on the Billboard year-end album chart for 1984 and spawned four top-ten hits on the Billboard Hot 100. Sports did very well internationally where most of its singles charted in the top 40 or above in multiple countries. In May 2013, a two-disc 30th Anniversary Edition album of Sports was released. The album is now approaching 10 million sales in the U.S. according to the liner notes by Gary Graff and the press release issued prior to release.
Production and history
The album was self-produced and recorded promptly after the modest breakthrough success of the band's second album, Picture This. However, due to reorganization and internal issues at the band's label, Chrysalis, the band held back the master tapes, choosing to perform at small venues to showcase the new material while the matters were resolved. Once Chrysalis got their affairs in order and an agreement in place with the band's management, the master tapes were handed over for production. Sports was finally released in September 1983 and proceeded a slow climb up the charts throughout late 1983 and early 1984. Lewis wrote "Bad Is Bad" in the late 1970s while working with Phil Lynott and Thin Lizzy. Lynott liked the song so much that he would sing it at some of his concerts in a fast pace. The band later recorded a music video for the song although it was not released as a single, filming the video on the streets of San Francisco in March 1985. Huey Lewis based "You Crack Me Up" on the various people he had encountered at the parking lot of Uncle Charlie's, a bar the band used to play at frequently before they hit it big.
Track listing
1999 Expanded Edition
A remastered "Expanded Edition" of Sports was released on June 29, 1999, and included the following session takes and live versions of their hit singles as bonus tracks.
30th Anniversary Edition
On May 14, 2013, a two-disc 30th Anniversary Edition of Sports was released, the first disc being a digitally remastered version of the original Sports album. The second disc includes live tracks as follows:
Singles
The lead single, "Heart and Soul", peaked at number 8 on the BillboardHot 100 singles chart with its accompanying video containing shots of San Francisco and an appearance by soap opera star, Signy Coleman, who played a blind woman on the soap opera, The Young and the Restless. The album's second release turned out to be the band's second best-selling single. "I Want a New Drug" peaked at number 6 on the Hot 100 and was certified gold with sales of 1 million copies in 1989 . The track was also the center of a lawsuit against artist Ray Parker Jr., who was accused of plagiarizing the song for his 1984 hit, "Ghostbusters". The case was eventually settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. The third single from the album continued the band's success as its ode to rock and roll, "The Heart of Rock & Roll", peaked at number 6 on the Hot 100. The accompanying video contained black & white footage of the band performing while legendary performers, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley & The Comets, Buddy Holly and Little Richard from the early rock era were shown. In June 1984, Sports hit number 1 on the Billboard albums chart, and the fourth single from the album, "If This Is It", was released shortly thereafter, also peaking at number 6 on the Hot 100. The fifth and final single from the album, "Walking on a Thin Line", was released in December 1984 and peaked at number 18. Other tracks from the album include, "Bad Is Bad", for which the band shot a video but never released as a single, and a cover of "Honky Tonk Blues", originally written and performed by Hank Williams.
Artwork
The cover art for the album features a photo of the band at the 2 AM Club, a bar located in Mill Valley, California where the band had performed during its early days.
The album is critiqued by the character Patrick Bateman in both the book and film versions of American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. In the film, this album is when Bateman considers the band to have "really come into their own, commercially and artistically." Lewis himself addressed this usage in a Funny or Die video, in which Lewis mirrors American Psycho in seeking revenge on "Weird Al" Yankovic for recording "I Want a New Duck".
In the Futurama episode "Luck of the Fryish" this album is said to be the only thing that didn't hold up in the Ronco record vault.
