Milk Crate Classics #2 - Aldo Nova

Imagine it's the summer and you are nineteen again. You and the boys hang about: booze; women; and the sounds of summer your only worries. Remember it? Remember her name? How many hers there even were? The drink I would remember if only there were any remnants of it left (do they even make that brand of beer anymore?) It's the music, however, that I remember most of all. Records on the turntable all day - records, real vinyl with an actual smell to them. You could, if you tried hard enough, wear one out. And the singer: the guy with the leather jacket; the Jimmy Page guitar; and the faggy Peter Pan boots!?! Wait, faggy Peter Pan Boots in the middle of your most manly of summers? Well, if the summer was 1982 and the singer was Aldo Nova, then yes. The boots it is.

Twenty years later that is also exactly what Aldo Nova sounds like: A guy with a Jimmy Page guitar and faggy boots. In retrospect, it is also obvious we weren't the only drunk eighteen year olds listening to Aldo Nova that summer. Corey Hart was certainly listening, and five years later would himself kill forever the 'Montreal based pouty singers' trend. Listening to Can't Stop Lovin' You is akin to listening to a Corey Hart tribute band. It is apparent that Bryan Adams was listening too. Both Foolin' Yourself, the albums biggest single, and Heart to Heart, feature a main guitar line that can only be described as Summer of 69-ish.

The other hits from this album include Ball and Chain, Hot Love and the albums signature song Fantasy.

Aldo Nova's "Aldo Nova" was an album, like the boots, very much of it's time. Caught between the hard rockin' 70's and the slinkingly wimpish, over synthesized 80's, Aldo Nova's debut album is unfortunately, much closer to Corey Hart than Bryan Adams. Although Foolin' Yourself beats Sunglasses at Night hands down.