In 1976 Mike Murphy was booted out, and Kevin Cronin rejoined Reo Speedwagon. R.E.O. or C.O.W. as some like to call it, is one of Reo's most solid early efforts. The tape opens with one of Reo's best rockers Keep Pushin'and it pretty much keeps rockin through until the end. Buy the time this album had came out the members of Reo where becoming very good songwriters. This is a great album for all REO fans.

The production is terrible and the songs sound flat. My favorite is "Keep Pushin'" and it just doesn't sound the way I was used to hearing it-so if you have your old vinyl-or the Decade of Rock N Roll LP-you're better off sticking to those versions.

Trust me, the songs-not including the sappy "Any Kind of Love" and "(Only A) Summer Love"-are great, but the sound is awful, at least, I was expecting it to sound better than it did.

As on REO fan for something like 25 years, I would rate this album with their best. "Hi InFidelity" broke them to the masses, but this one marked Kevin Cronin's return to the fold and (in my mind) established them as one of the best west coast influenced jam bands of the 70's. Mighty big words, but listen to "Lightning" and "Our Time is Gonna Come". The only thing (in my mind) that kept them from going on and on was the restrictive time constraints of the LP format. Gary Richrath really goes to town on all of those major scale solos at the end of each of these songs, and the deceptively simple song structures ("Breakaway" and "Keep Pushin'") ring as true as anything the Eagles were doing. I just picked up the live Big Head Todd and the Monsters cd without ever hearing anything other than their radio hits and was struck by the similarity of much of their material to this mid-period REO stuff. The influences are definately there: the big guitar solos, the (seemingly) simple song structures, the emotional punch of the melody.... REO Speedwagon obviously did influence many bands playing today and "REO" is probably the best example of what made that band so great and, uh, meaningful.

IS THERE NO SENSE OF DECENCY LEFT IN THE WORLD?????????????????? Charging $239.00 for this CD is ridiculous....and even more ridiculous is someone stupid enough to pay it.....

When oh when will we see a 2 for cd remaster release (as they did with the first 4 albums).....they need to combine the C.O.W. and THIS TIME WE MEAN IT albums and put the scalpers out of business...once and for all.

if you are waiting for the remaster of this...as well as the THIS TIME WE MEAN IT remaster.....you better just grab the downloads and save some money and dont hold your breath......it might be a very long wait

They did a very fine remastering on the first 4 REO albums...I was very impressed with the overall sound quality...it surpassed the original vinyl...but I think somebody dropped the ball and they're going to leave it end there....

I was really hoping to see the remaining albums with Greg Philbin get their remastering honor.......but seriously doubt it'll be happening anytime soon.

If anybody has an inside connection to the band or record label.......please put a bug in their ear.

All songs on this album are very good, but the album is mediocrely produced. Hearing that this album was their poorest seller doesn't surprise me, based on my own experience with REO at the time. I had bought REO Two which was a great album. I bought the next 3 albums which got progressively worse, to almost bad. Kronin and the band parted ways and Mike Murphy couldn't sing and the songs were not very good. So when this album came out, even seeing that Kevin was back, I did not buy it. I only first heard these songs when 4 of them were included on the "You Get What You Play For" live album. I then bought this album and thought the other songs were very good too. Some songs have a little bit of county rock sound to them such as "Any Kind Of Love", "Summer Love", "Breakaway" and "Tonight". On this album REO introduced a new ingredient that they needed to make future big hits: nice harmony vocals. There were none on REO Two and now they were here in full force. Richrath sings lead on "Only a Summer Love" which is a romantic song for any one who had ever had a summer love. What I really liked about REO versus some harder rock bands of the time, was what their songs were about: romance and "change, striving for success or happiness". This is what interested me as 20 year old, a lot more than getting drugged out and dying. The love songs include: Any Kind Of Love, Summer Love, Lightning. Songs about striving to make it include "Keep Pushing", "Our Time is Gonna Come", Breakaway. My personal favorite on the album is the mysterious "Lightning" a perfect collaboration between Kronin and Richrath.