Manfred Mann´s Earth Band - Chance (1980)

Manfred Mann's Earth Band are an English rock band formed by South African musician Manfred Mann. The band's hits include covers of Bruce Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light" and "Spirit In The Night". After forming in 1971 and despite a short hiatus in the late 1980s/early 1990s, the Earth Band has continued to perform and tour through the present.
Manfred Mann's 1980 album is a strange mix of topical songwriting, progressive rock, and power pop from its opening seconds, the Earth Band is pressing serious messages and social commentary on their listenership amid swirling prog rock keyboards and catchy guitar hooks and choruses.
The whole package is challenging in ways that should have put them on the cutting edge of rock music at the outset of that decade, but one suspects that Mann and company were too musically adept and sophisticated for their own good a little dumbing down and maybe a little less musicianship on display would have made them more accessible to the coming MTV generation. As it is, the album has held up remarkably well across a quarter century, however, even if it now seems an uncomfortably accurate warning of the way the world would go, in terms of politics and society, in the decades to come. It would also be three years before another Earth Band album was forthcoming, and that one would be steeped in world music sounds.

Track listing

01.  "Lies (Through the 80s)"   (Denny Newman)  - 4:37
02.  "On the Run"   (Manfred Mann, Tony Ashton, Florrie Palmer)  - 3:53
03.  "For You"   (Bruce Springsteen)  - 5:41
04.  "Adolescent Dream"   (Mann)  - 2:42
05.  "Fritz the Blank"   (Mann)  - 2:52
06.  "Stranded"   (Mike Heron, Mann)  - 5:49
07.  "Hello, I Am Your Heart"   (Dennis Linde)  - 5:19
08.  "No Guarantee"   (Mann)  - 3:50
09.  "Heart on the Street"   (Tom Gray)  - 4:56

Bonus Tracks (1999 re-issue)
10.  "A Fool I Am"  (single B side)   (Mann, Pat King, John Lingwood, Steve Waller)  - 4:16
11.  "Adolescent Dream"  (single version)   (Mann)  - 2:24
12.  "Lies (Through the 80s)"  (single version)   (Newman)  - 4:15
13.  "For You"  (single version)   (Springsteen)  - 3:53

Credits
Manfred Mann - keyboards, vocals ("Adolescent Dream")
John Lingwood - drums
Pat King - bass, bass pedals
Mick Rogers - guitars
Steve Waller - guitars, vocals ("This Is Your Heart")
Chris Thompson - vocals ("Lies Through The 80s", "On The Run", "For You")

with
Trevor Rabin - guitars
Robbie McIntosh - guitars
Geoff Whitehorn - guitars
Dyan Birch - vocals ("Guarantee" and others)
Willy Finlayson - vocals ("Heart On The Street")
Peter Marsh - vocals ("Stranded")
Carol Stocker - backing vocals
Barbara Thompson - saxophone
Producer - Manfred Mann, Trevor Rabin

Notes
Release date: 10 October 1980
Recorded at: Workhouse Studios, London Casa das Flores, Albufeira, Portugal, 1979-1980
Genre:  Progressive rock
Length: 54:28
© 1980

Label - Bronze (UK original release) Cohesion (UK 1999 reissue)