I darn near shredded my tender vocal cords trying to sound like the protagonist of "Summer of '69." That was the epic summer of '85. Nineteen years later, I'm still happy when this song comes on the radio. Of course I get a lump in my throat over that final "and now the times are changin'/look at everything that's come and gone" stanza...this coming of age masterpiece is made all the better by the fact that Bryan Adams still had his baby teeth in 1969, putting "Summer" smack in the middle of the nowhere rock geography shared by Journey's "south Detroit" and Kim Wylde's "east California."

At this point, the tracks are imprinted on my DNA. "Heaven" is an evergreen, "One Night Love Affair" is a tasty opener, "Run To You" is a dark ode to having a l'il teen something something on the side. Yep, Reckless is prime sanitized Telecaster flannel rock. I love every song on this record. And anyone who loves Reckless as much as I do tends to keep it to herself. But you're gonna buy this CD, even though you already have it on vinyl and cassette, so you're equally busted.

If you don't like rock and roll, don't bother with this album. For those of you who only know the later Bryan Adams (the guy who sang with Barbara Streisand and is a darling of the "lite FM" genre),this album may be a little shocking -- it is honest, straight up, occasionally guitar crunching rock and roll. All the promise of his earlier "Cuts Like A Knife" is fullfilled in this album. "Ain't Gonna Cry" is a terrific song for that significant other you were relieved to see go. "It's Only Love" features Tina Turner in all her soulful glory. "Run to You" is still a (cheating)classic, as are "Somebody" and "Summer of 69" (all of which still get regular airplay on rock radio). I first bought this on cassette in 1987, and once CD's became common, it was the first CD I ever bought. It's been many years since the release of these songs, but I put it on the other day, and it still stands up. Not only is this Bryan Adams' best album, but it's one of the most underrated albums of all time.

"Reckless" by Bryan Adams is an essential addition to anyone who grew up in the 80's and still loves to rock. I downloaded this album for under $2 and since buying the hit songs individually would have cost me at least double what I paid, I'm a happy girl!

The entire album became a hit in 1985 and 24 years later, it's still a hit...at least with me.

Bryan Adams' 1984 album "Reckless" has really become his signature album for his career. Although "Everything I Do, I Do It For You" was his most successful single, that was found on the "Waking Up the Neighbours". The album "Reckless" really was a monster hit. It spawned 6 Top 40 singles including the #1 hit "Heaven" (the other songs were "Run to You", "Somebody", "Summer of 69", "One Night Love Affair", and "It's Only Love". "Reckless" was released at a time when the music and pop industry was in one of its peak periods for the decade. The fact that "Reckless" had multi-platnium sales and 6 Top 40 singles during a very competitive time in the industry speaks volumes for this particular piece of work. Bryan also came out when Canadian musicians was making an impact. Rush was continuing to be a major force in progressive Rock while Corey Hart had some success on the Pop circuit. Adams would soon pass them and become Canada's #1 music act in terms of commerical sales.

The Title "Reckless" says it all. "Reckless" is actually a reference in to a line in the final song "Aint Gonna Cry" in which Adams sings "I got Reckless baby". The album was made when Adams was in his mid 20s and really does a great job at telling tales from a young male's perspective of someone this age. The songs from the album were all collaborations between Bryan Adams and Jim Vallance. Many people say when the Adams/Vallance duo split from songwriting in the 90s that Adams career went into decline. But it was Vallance who contributed some of the strongest songwriting in Bryan's career.

Bryan Adams has always been blessed with working with some of the most talented studio musicians in the business. Many of these musicians have stayed with Bryan for the past 20 years. Keith Scott and Dave Taylor have been long time guitarists. Vallance makes percussion contributions. Mickey Curry and Pat Steward are the drummers while Tommy Mandel plays keyboards. The producer of this album is Bob Clearmountain known to be one of the best studio mixers in the business. Clearmountain did a great job at working the right sound on this album.

The content of the album is first rate all the way. As for the packaging, the cover features what has become a trademark black and white picture of Bryan Adams with a classic 80s haircut and a leather jacket. The liner notes contain all of the lyrics to all of the songs as well as the band credits and contributions on each song. There are also 3 notable guests on the album. The most famous of the 3 is Tina Turner who actually shares lead vocals with Bryan on the Top 40 hit "It's Only Love". Her contribution on this album actually coincided with her big comeback in 1984. The chemistry between Bryan and Tina in this song is incredible and passionate (so much there were actually romantic rumors between the two). Lou Gramm of Foreigner does some background vocals on "She's Only Happy When She's Dancing" which wasn't a Top 40 hit, but could have easily have been one. Steve Smith of Journey does Drums on the hit Heaven.

The album is arranged perfectly. I couldn't think of a better song to kick off the "Reckless" album than "One Night Love Affair" and I couldn't think of a better song to wrap the album up with than "Aint Gonna Cry". All of the songs are harder edge Rock songs except for "Heaven" which was the lone ballad. The best song on the album is probably the song "Run To You". This was the first single released from the album and it really put Bryan Adams on the music landscape. I never grow tired of that song. What also is worth noting are the non Top 40 songs that are on this album "Aint Gonna Cry", "Long Gone", and "She's Only Happy When She's Dancing" all merit as solid hits. The 4th song "Kids Wanna Rock" is a fan favorite, but not a personal favorite of mine - yet it too could have been a solid hit based on its popularity.

I was very surprised this album didn't get consideration for "Album of the Year". There is a lot of great lyrics and great music to back this up. After this album, Adams would release "Into The Fire" which might not have been the commerical monster that "Reckless" was, but would continue to the path of Adams becoming one of the premier musicians in the industry.

"Cuts Like a Knife" gave him his first hits, but it wasn't until the release of "Reckless" that Adams got catapulted to the top of the charts, not only in Canada and America, but across the world. It consisted entirely of excellent melodic rock tunes, with hooks so catchy that you just couldn't get them out of your head no matter how hard you tried.

It produced no less than six hit singles; one of the best nostalgia songs ever ("Summer of '69"), brilliant radio material ("Run to You", "Somebody", "One Night Love Affair" and "It's Only Love"; a duet with Tina Turner) and one of the best ballads ever, "Heaven" (Allmusic fittingly named it "The Ballad to End All Ballads", and I couldn't agree more).

The rest of the album is great but doesn't often get a lot of credit. Despite this, "Kids Wanna Rock" remains Adams' best song live and "She's Only Happy When She's Dancin'" is still a favourite among fans (in fact, it even scraped the Top 20 on the US Radio Charts, but was never released as a single). The last two songs are not as good as the rest of the album, but they're still great.

Some critics didn't like this album for its simple and nostalgic lyrics, but those critics obviously missed the point, because "Reckless" is clearly not meant to be taken seriously. It's meant to be a fun, rockin' time, and on that note it succeeds brilliantly.