Reckless by Bryan Adams

Reckless, Bryan Adams' fourth album, came out on A&M on November 5, 1984, timed to land on his 25th birthday, and it's the sound of a Canadian rocker swinging for the arenas and connecting almost every time. Just as on Cuts Like a Knife before it, Adams produced it with Bob Clearmountain, and the pair kept it crisp, punchy and loud.

This is hard rock with the rough edges buffed to a showroom shine: ringing guitars, big shout-along choruses and Adams' sandpaper rasp right up front. "Summer of '69" is the fist-pumping one, "Run to You" broods over a moody, chiming riff, and "Heaven" slows the pulse for the lighters-up moment. With "Somebody", "One Night Love Affair" and "It's Only Love" also sent out, it gave up six singles, and every one of them made the upper reaches of the Billboard Hot 100.

It went all the way to number one on the Billboard 200 and sold more than 12 million copies around the world, a total beaten among his studio albums only by 1991's Waking Up the Neighbours. Back home it made history as the first Canadian album to sell a million copies inside Canada, and it has gone eleven times platinum there.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.