Tommy Tutone 2 by Tommy Tutone

Tommy Tutone 2, the second album from San Francisco power-pop outfit Tommy Tutone, came out on Columbia in 1981, and it's the record that lodged a phone number in the heads of an entire nation. Singer and rhythm guitarist Tommy Heath had started the band in 1978 with Jim Keller and Terry Nails, naming it after his own nickname. An earlier single, "Angel Say No", had already cracked the top 40, and they'd done time warming up crowds for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

"867-5309/Jenny" is the one everybody knows: a jangling, hook-first rocker so contagious it set off a nationwide craze of prank calls to those very digits, and VH1 later ranked it 36th among the greatest songs of the 1980s. Around it the record is bright, tight guitar pop, with John Cowsill of the Cowsills pitching in on backing vocals and percussion.

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