Rod Stewart

The album credits for Rod Stewart’s 1986 self-titled album (known as Every Beat of My Heart in other countries) includes quite a few notable names, including keyboardist Nicky Hopkins, guitarists Steve Cropper and Nils Lofgren, and producer Bob Ezrin, who’s been known to heavily influence an artist’s approach and sound. So Ezrin went to work on Stewart whose ‘80s output at this point had consisted of very contemporary pop-radio oriented productions, heavy on synthesizers and mechanized drums. Together they fashioned an album that continues this approach but with a notably darker tinge. “Here to Eternity” is lush, adult-contemporary, all rough edges smoothed over with insistent keyboards and rounded synth notes, but it also maintains a slow, creeping gait that hints at something darker. No one will mistake these tracks for Stewart’s prime era, but there’s a gruffer strain to “A Night Like This,” and when he sings the Beatles’ “In My Life,” no one can deny the greatness of the man’s voice. “Love Touch” was featured in the Robert Redford film Legal Eagles. The ‘80s were full of questionable fashions — shoulder pads, anyone? — and Stewart made his own ill-advised decisions, but it kept him in the public eye at a time when many of his contemporaries were shuffled off into irrelevance.