The Road to Hell


The Road to Hell is the tenth studio album by English singer-songwriter Chris Rea, released in 1989. It is Rea's most successful studio album, topping the UK Albums Chart for three weeks, and was certified 6x Platinum by BPI until 2004. The second part of the two-part title track, "The Road to Hell ", is also one of Rea's most famous songs.

Summary

Rea recalls that he had a lot of trouble with the album due to the record company, and "recorded the next album – Auberge – before, as an agreement with Warner Brothers. So if Road To Hell didn’t work – and they said it won't – we would jump straight away to Auberge and forget about it. Of course, the beginning to "Road To Hell" is a gospel blues thing. Warner Brothers went, ‘This is going to be over in five minutes’. But I did stand me ground, and it went No.1".
The song "Texas" has been played through the years on Classic Rock/AOR radio stations in Texas, and is sometimes played as background music before Texas Rangers baseball games at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington. Another track, "Daytona", is about the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 "Daytona", in which he sings about the car metaphorically, with the engine and tyre noise from the car ringing out toward the end of the song. Also, the song "Tell Me There's a Heaven" was used in a 1991 public information film for the NSPCC.
The album cover features art by the English commercial artist, Adrian Chesterman, who was also responsible for creating cover art for, amongst others, Motörhead's 1979 Bomber album.

Track listing

All songs by Chris Rea.
  1. "The Road to Hell " - 4:52
  2. "The Road to Hell " - 4:30
  3. "You Must Be Evil" - 4:20
  4. "Texas" - 5:09
  5. "Looking for a Rainbow" - 8:00
  6. "Your Warm and Tender Love" - 4:32
  7. "Daytona" - 5:04
  8. "That's What They Always Say" - 4:27
  9. "I Just Wanna Be with You" - 3:39
  10. "Tell Me There's a Heaven" - 6:00
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In 2019 the album, along with others in Rea's back catalogue, was remastered and reissued with a second CD of B-Sides, remixes and live tracks.

Track Listing (2019 remaster bonus disc)

  1. He Should Know Better - 4.38
  2. That's What They Always Say - 6.41
  3. 1975 - 4.47
  4. The Road To Hell Parts 1 & 2 - 6.59
  5. Working On It - 6.26
  6. Let's Dance - 7.34
  7. Daytona - 6.36
  8. Working On It - 5.56
  9. Josephine - 4.16
  10. Let's Dance - 4.15
  11. You Must Be Evil - 4.36
  12. I Can Hear Your Heartbeat - 3.25
  13. Working On It - 4.26

    Certifications

Personnel