A tough record to find good sound for! The ’80s have not been so good for us audiophiles. This copy with a Super Hot side two is doing a helluva lot better than most of what we played. Quiet vinyl too.

Side One

Big and rich with good energy.

Side Two

Track three is big and full and the vocals are not too edgy. That more or less earned it a sonic grade of Super Hot.

The first track is rich and full-bodied, yet clear. It sounds like Steve was listening to a bit of Devo around this time, nothing wrong with that.

TRACK LISTING

Side One

Keeps Me Wondering Why
Abracadabra
Something Special
Give It Up
Never Say No

Side Two

Things I Told You
Young Girl’s Heart
Goodbye Love
Cool Magic
While I’m Waiting

AMG  Review

Steve Miller was always catchy and tuneful, but he never turned out an unabashed pop album until 1982’s Abracadabra. This isn’t just pop in construction, it’s pop in attitude, filled with effervescent melodies and deeply silly lyrics, perhaps none more noteworthy than the immortal couplet “Abra-Abracadabra/I wanna reach out and grab ya.” Those words graced the title track, which turned out to be one of his biggest hits, and if nothing else is quite as irresistibly goofy as that song, there still is a surplus of engagingly tuneful material, all dressed up in the psuedo-new wave production so favored by AOR veterans in the early ’80s. All of that may not make this one of Miller’s definitive albums, especially in the view of hardcore space blues heads, but it’s pretty damn irresistible for listeners who find “Abracadabra” one of the highlights of faux-new wave AOR.