Secret Secrets by Joan Armatrading

Secret Secrets, Joan Armatrading's ninth studio album, arrived on A&M on 4 February 1985, nearly a decade after the self-titled record and Show Some Emotion first made her name. Mike Howlett produced it, and the whole thing was made in London: recording and mixing both happened at Battery Studios in Willesden, the room once known as Morgan Studios.

It's a mid-'80s record in its bones, with the gloss and punch of the day, but Armatrading's husky, unshowy voice keeps the songs anchored to something human. The album climbed to 14 in Britain and 18 in Australia and went Silver, though the singles were a hard sell: "Temptation" was the only one to chart at home, and it stalled at 65.

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