REO Speedwagon’s classic album Hi Infidelity ascended to No. 1 on the Billboard 200 on February 21, 1981. The record would go on to spend 15 non-consecutive weeks at the top of the chart, finally falling out of the No. 1 position in late June of that year.
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Although REO Speedwagon had formed in 1967 and released its debut record in 1972, the Illinois rock band had never event had a Top-40 hit before Hi Infidelity, the group’s ninth studio effort.
[RELATED: Watch REO Speedwagon and Train Mashup Classic Hits on Jimmy Kimmel Live!]
Here are five fascinating facts about Hi Infidelity:
REO Scored Their First No. 1 Hit with “Keep On Loving You”
Frontman Kevin Cronin says he wrote “Keep On Loving You” after he woke up one night with three simple piano chords running through his head. In a 2017 interview with Ultimate Classic Rock, Cronin recalled that when he played the song in the rehearsal studio for his bandmates, it wasn’t well-received.
Cronin said as he continued to play the tune, lead guitarist Gary Richrath began aggressively soloing along. The singer said he felt that Richrath was trying to drown out what he was playing, but Cronin realized that the “gnarly” guitar riffing was “the perfect thing … for what I was playing.”
The ballad was released as the first single from Hi Infidelity, and it reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1981, spending one week there.
“Keep On Loving You” Almost Wasn’t Included on Hi Infidelity
Cronin told Ultimate Classic Rock that the A&R department at REO’s label, Epic Records, didn’t “Keep On Loving You” was good enough to put on Hi Infidelity.
“I had to beg [them] to put “Keep On Loving You” on the album,” he recalled. “When they heard that, they were like, ‘Go back and keep writing; we don’t really hear that.’ I had to literally fight with the record company to get that song included.”
Three More Songs from the Album Reached the Top 40
Hi Infidelity also featured the Top-40 hits “Take It on the Run,” “In Your Letter,” and “Don’t Let Him Go.”
“Take It on the Run” and “In Your Letter,” which were both written by lead guitarist Gary Richrath, peaked at No. 5 and No. 20, respectively, on the Hot 100. The Cronin-penned “Don’t Let Him Go” ascended to No. 24.
Cronin told Ultimate Classic Rock that he knew as soon as he heard the beginning of Richrath’s demo for “Take It on the Run” that the song would be a hit.
“When I heard, ‘Heard it from a friend, who heard it from a friend, who heard it from another you’ve been messin’ around,’ I was like, ‘I don’t need to hear anything else,’” he recalled. “‘This f—ing song, people are going to [love it].’ … It was kind of one of those ‘You had me at hello’ moments. I just thought, ‘That’s just the greatest [beginning].’”
“Tough Guys” Starts with an Audio Clip from The Little Rascals
At the beginning of the track “Tough Guys,” we hear an edited clip from the 1937 Little Rascals short film Hearts Are Thumps.
The scene features Alfalfa in a flirty moment with his girlfriend Darla, who asks him to push her on a swing. Spanky then says to Alfalfa, “Say, Romeo! What about your promise to the He-Man Woman-Haters’ Club?” Alfalfa responds, “I’m sorry, Spanky. I have to live my own life.”
Cronin told Ultimate Classic Rock that the song was inspired by him being bullied in junior high and high school. The song received some radio airplay, and landed at No. 25 on Billboard’s Mainstream Rock chart.
Hi Infidelity Has Achieved Diamond Status
Hi Infidelity was released on November 21, 1980, and went on to become the top-selling album of 1981. On August 17, 2017, it was certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 10 million copies in the U.S.
