Riptide by Robert Palmer

Riptide, Robert Palmer's eighth album, landed on Island on 4 November 1985, and it finds the sharp-dressed Englishman plugging the Power Station's muscle straight into his solo career. He brought guitarist Andy Taylor and drummer Tony Thompson over from that band, and Bernard Edwards, the Power Station's producer, produced and played bass across three months at Compass Point Studios in Nassau. Chaka Khan drops by too.

"Addicted to Love" is the big bang, all slamming drums and chunky riffs, its Terence Donovan video lining up identically dressed, heavily made-up women as a mock backing band, and it won Palmer a Grammy for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. The rest roams widely: a steamy cover of Cherrelle's "I Didn't Mean to Turn You On", "Trick Bag" by his New Orleans blues hero Earl King, and a title track that reaches back to a 1933 song by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn.

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