★★★★★
In his previous group, sturdy country-rockers Clover, Lewis was left twiddling his thumbs while his bandmates provided the backing for Elvis Costello on 1977's My Aim Is True. Six years later, however, he was the centre of attention, courtesy of an album whose sales dwarfed those of Costello's entire catalogue combined. The News were unlikely superstars: a confident and competent bar band no one had earmarked for greatness until Sports shifted an astonishing 10 million copies worldwide...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-06-20
★★★★★
In an era when "radio-friendly" was the coin of the Top 40-dominated realm, Sports was a veritable radio reach-around, spawning five Top 20 singles. (This reissue adds a disc of "Hell-o Cleveland!" live versions.) Lewis, a recovering folk rocker, filed Fifties corn ("The Heart of Rock & Roll"), red-sport-coat country ("Honky Tonk Blues"), warmed-over New Wave ("You Crack Me Up") and Cali soft rock ("If This Is It") into his own cheese Everest...
- www.rollingstone.com
2013-05-18
★★★★★
Every so often an artist or band comes along who are massive in the US but not the UK (e.g. Bush or Hootie & the Blowfish) or vice versa (e.g. Robbie Williams or The Stone Roses). Back in the 80's there was Huey Lewis and the News. Huge in the States, their third album Sports went to number one and seven times platinum, as well as producing four top ten singles. In the UK one single at no. 39, and the album at no. 23 is as good as it got...
- music.thedigitalfix.com
2013-05-02
★★★★★
Huey Lewis and the News haven't made an album in nearly a decade. But for a few years during the '80s, they were one of the highest-grossing and best-selling acts on the planet, with songs like "I Want a New Drug" and "The Power of Love" that were not only well-crafted and catchy, but were superbly produced and performed...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
Hang your heads in shame, Rod Stewart and Phil Collins - this is how you pay homage to the vintage soul of yesteryear. Rather than bash out a covers album top-heavy with synthetic reworkings of sacred cow classics, Lewis has opted for a trawl of some of the more obscure sparklers in the Stax back catalogue...
- www.recordcollectormag.com
2011-01-03
★★★★★
If you love everything 80's, or if your Dad could do with some new music then this is an album worth buying. Huey Lewis and the News are gods of 80's pop culture and their Greatest Hitsis a must for anyone who ever sported shell-suits and mullets in an attempt to be cool. For those of you who think you know nothing about this band think again. They provided two of the soundtrack songs for cult film Back To The Future, 'The Power of Love' and 'Back In Time'...
- www.gigwise.com
2010-11-09
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
You said it, the man's an utter cornball, but on this album I simply succumb to the stupid pleasures of his big fat rockcraft. Even though I know it isn't the "same old back beat" that keeps rock and roll alive, but rather musicians brave or bored enough to fuck with it, something same-old has me grunting with pleasure at that song every time I let down my guard...
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
★★★★★
Miffed when the Dems rejected the title tune as a campaign song--"It just doesn't rock hard enough," an unidentified Harvard pol complained--Huey offered it to George, who found it bland and pointed out that its call for a kinder, gentler planet wasn't very specific. So then Huey took it to the radio.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10