Trooper - Untitled

Name: Trooper
Album: Untitled
Year: 1980
Style: Power Pop, Prog
Similar Bands: Queen, Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, April Wine, Guess Who, Foghat
"One-Word" Review: Arena Party Pop
Based Out Of: Vancouver, Canada
Label: MCA

Cover, Record

Record, Back

Untitled (1980)

1. Don't Feel Like Dancing 4:34
2. If I Never See Your Face Again 3:30
3. Are You Still My Baby 4:48 (single)
4. Real Canadians 3:30 (single)
5. Legend 3:45 (b-Side to ...Baby) /
6. Dump That Creep 3:45
7. Laura 3:33 (Single)
8. I Don't Wanna Be Here 3:55 (b-side to Laura)
9. Volunteer Victims 5:05

Album Rating (1-10): 8.0

Members & Other Bands:

• Brian Smith - Producer, Tonto Bros. Choir, Guitar (Winter's Green, Applejack, A Passing Fancy, Randy Meisner, Nanette Workman, )
• Ra (Ramon) McGuire - Producer, Tonto Bros. Choir, Vox (Winter's Green, Applejack, Loverboy)
• Tommy Stewart - Tonto Bros. Choir, Drums (Applejack, Cats)
• Robert Deans - Tonto Bros. Choir, Keys (New World Electronic Chamber Ensemble, Songbird, Heart, Jayson Hoover)
• Doni Underhill - Tonto Bros. Choir - Bass, Vox (Fludd)
• Dave Slagter - Engineer, Tonto Bros. Choir (Payola$, Morgan Cryar)
• Patrick Glover - 2nd Engineer, Tonto Bros. Choir (Payola$)
• Jim Warrington - Indispensable Aid, Tonto Bros. Choir
• Randy Berswick - Tonto Bros. Choir, Mgmt
• Sam Feldman - Mgmt
• Michael deCourcy - Graphic Processes
• James O'Mara - Album Design & Photography

Unknown-ness: I never heard of this band, but from the cover, i think it looks like a hard core band, with the blotchy semblance of some sort of military person with a gun artwork, and the stenciled band name. But the 70's AOR looking portraits of the dude-band definitely give the band a light, friendly perception. The photo interpretation outweighs the artistic usage, so i'm going with the light, 70's AOR harmony-filled power pop over the artwork, which is probably just emphasizing the band name, with nothing more to read into it.

Album Review: This is their 6th album in 6 years (since '75), but they go back to 1965, and are still active today (2020).  It is the first to be produced without Randy Bachman (Bachman Turner Overdrive). This album followed a greatest hits record, which was the best selling Canadian record of all time, reaching 6x-Platinum status. They are in the top five best selling Canadian bands of all time, and have won many awards, including the Juno for band of the year in 1980. The songs are definitely in the power-arena rock genre, which makes sense. By this time, they had the biggest Canadian record of all time, so they produced music for where they'd need to play. But they also power up some oldies styled pop tunes and modernize them. "Are You Still My Baby" sounds awfully familiar...perhaps I've heard it before, as it is not a cover. And "Dump That Creep" is downright fun driving (ans humorus) New Wave track.

Stand Out Track: Real Canadians, Dump That Creep

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