Tom Ozric wrote: Thanks for that, Ajay !!  This album was the one that was amongst my friend's brothers' record collection.  I never listened to it.  The cut you included here smells well and truly of Prog-Folk.  I wonder if this band would ever be included here at P.A. in the Prog-Related category (at least) ???

they had a strong Led Zeppelin influence in their early stuff. But they are more AOR-related than prog-related.

^
bad covers aside, "Alone" is a very good song.

 way over the top, but if you can't do it at an occasion like that, when can you?

lucas wrote: bad covers aside, "Alone" is a very good song.

Yeah. It never landed with me until I saw Ann perform it on The Road Home DVD, then it tore me to pieces.

I've become a big Heart fan over the last couple of years.  I think one of the band's greatest strengths is their progressiveness in the sense of developing and evolving.  Although they're mostly hard and folk rock-oriented, they do calypso, blues, country, soul, new wave, 40's and 50's broadway-style, and many different kinds of rock. 

Although I didn't get to vote in this poll, I'd say that their best album is probably Little Queen.  Since I don't limit myself to prog as a genre, I judge the albums based on overall music quality.

As a rough guide for their albums, here's my take (with rating out of 5 stars):

Dreamboat Annie: 4

Little Queen: 4

Magazine: 3

Dog and Butterfly: 3.5

Bebe Le Strange: 3

Private Audition: 3.5

Passionworks: 3.5

Heart: 3

Bad Animals: 2.5

Brigade: 2.5

Desire Walks On: 2

Jupiter's Darling: 3

Red Velvet Car: 2.5

Fanatic: 3

A lot has been already said on this forum about their early albums (Dreamboat Annie up through Dog and Butterfly).  On Dog and Butterfly, a lot has been said about Mistral Wind.  The studio version is frankly not that great.  You should check out live versions of it.  Also, High Times is mediocre, even though it was played live a lot.

The album Bebe Le Strange is much more lively than Dog and Butterfly.  Obvious highlights of the former include the title track and Even It Up.  Strange Night is refreshingly different and worth a listen.  Sweet Darling is a nice closer.

I have atypical taste in that I really like their two early 1980's albums (the two before they sold out to the record company and relied big time on outside song writers) Private Audition and Passionworks.  Both of these records are usually panned by the critics as among their worst, probably because of their lack of commercial success.  Private Audition is much weirder of the two-- kind of like a Led Zeppelin's Houses of the Holy in its variety of genres and departure from the band's previous work.  Passionworks is arena/hard rock, similar in style to the two better-known albums, Heart and Bad Animals.  I think Passionworks is very underrated and holds up much more to both the test of time and to repeated listens than their later 80's work.  From those three mid-80's to 1990 albums, basically the hit singles are the best (e.g. These Dreams, What About Love, Alone, All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You).  Wild Child and Under the Sky are good on Brigade, but I can't remember anything else, sorry.

I think that during and even after their sell-out 1980's/early 1990's period, Heart's song writing suffered a lot.  It became increasingly conventional in structure and less spontaneous-sounding.  This is especially noticeable on Desire Walks On, which I do not recommend, except for select tracks such as Black on Black II, Ring Them Bells, and Back to Avalon, the latter of which sounds like the Indigo Girls.

Jupiter's Darling is another poor-selling album of theirs.  It's pretty good, but some of the song writing feels like they were trying too hard to reach a younger audience.  It comes across as cheesy.  The heavy parts also seem kind of forced, but the song writing is otherwise decent.

Red Velvet Car-- WTF and Sand are the two highlights for me.  The rest of the album is okay to mediocre.  Ann's vocal melodies are often unoriginal and lack conviction.

Fanatic-- The studio version of Walkin' Good (featuring special guest Sarah Mclachlan) is a very well-written, accessible song, although some of the critics feel  it's a weak point for the album.  The studio version pales in comparison to live versions that I've heard.  Mashallah is middle-eastern influenced and is another great song.  59 Crunch is lyrically funny-- another highlight.  A few of the other songs are decent (3 stars): Rock Deep Vancouver, Dear Old America.

Finally, I think live Heart is quite good.  Check out their stuff up to 1984-ish but also from 1994-ish on, and especially after 2005.  While Roger Fisher was in the band (pre-1980), they did a lot more live improvisation than afterward.  The most recent line-ups (post 2005) play phenomenally well. In many shows, Magic Man, Crazy on You, Barracuda, and Mistral Wind are superior than the studio versions.

Edited by dragonspirit - March 28 2014 at 15:59

Dreamboat Annie. That's it. I didn't care for them after that, except sexually, of course.

The first 4 are all solid albums but went with Little Queen.

I quite like Dreamboat Annie.

The first two albums are flat out amazing.  After that things get less consistent but still there are great moments on each album. 

Ann Wilson's voice has remained in tact into the 2000s making their live shows still quite good. 

Hi Dragonspirit...I've revisited Bebe through Passion recently and appreciate them more now, particularly Bebe and the first side of Passionworks. 

It's kind of interesting you mention the recent stuff not doing as much for you....now, I can't recall where I read or heard this so I don't want to try to name the person....but SOMEone.....I think it was an ex bandmate.....maybe Leese, maybe someone else.....but anyway, this person I can't recall but who is close to Heart basically came out and said......Yeah, their "new" band sucks.  Sounded a bit disgruntled.  I can't comment because I haven't heard them perform recently.