Music
Sports (30th Anniversary Edition)
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. This being the Eighties, Sports also had a bitingly realist song about the emotional wreckage of the Vietnam War (“Walking on a Thin Line”). What a time to be alive – and stuck in traffic.