While my parents owned a couple of cassettes of Heart’s music from the 1970s, my first real memory of hearing the band comes from the mid-1980s, when I was hearing the songs from the self-titled album on my local CHR/Pop station. The first song I distinctly remember hearing was “These Dreams,” and I fell in love with it instantly. I was about ten years old at the time, and the sound of the music and lyrics just grabbed me as a pre-teen. I also remember hearing “What About Love” and “Never” at that time; I would hear “Nothin’ At All” and “If Looks Could Kill” a few years later, after purchasing a copy of the self-titled album on cassette.

A couple of years later, during the summer of 1987, I remember hearing “Alone” from the follow-up album, Bad Animals. This was the summer before I started the seventh grade, and I remember falling in love with this power ballad when I first heard it. I have to admit that I didn’t care for “Who Will You Run To,” the follow-up single, at the time; however, it’s a song that I have since come to enjoy a lot. The third and final single I heard from the album would have been the mid-tempo “There’s The Girl,” which is another song I really liked when I first heard it.

In the spring of 1990, when I was in the ninth grade, Heart released their next album, Brigade. The lead-off single, “All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You,” was a big hit, and at the time I liked the song; however, it’s become one of the songs by Heart that I just don’t listen to as much anymore. The follow-up single, “I Didn’t Want To Need You” didn’t fare nearly as well, but it’s a song that I liked. The third single, “Stranded,” was the big power ballad on the album. It’s my favorite single from Brigade, and it’s still one of my favorite Heart songs of all-time. The final single, “Secret,” didn’t have much success at CHR/Pop, but I personally liked it.

In the fall of 1993, which was during my first year of college, Heart released the Desire Walks On album. The lead-off single, “Will You Be There (In The Morning)” had some chart success, and it’s a song that I like. The follow-up single, “The Woman In Me” didn’t really have any chart success. It’s not a bad song, but it just wasn’t as strong as some of their previous singles.

I have to admit that after Desire Walks On, I had lost track of Heart. However, after that album was released, I finally heard some of Heart’s material from the 1970s, such as “Barracuda,” “Dog & Butterfly,” “Crazy On You,” “Magic Man,” and “(Love Me Like Music) I’ll Be Your Song.” While these songs have a much different sound from the material Heart released between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s, these songs are still very good in their own right.