What's Rick Springfield's Secret?

If the fact that he’s not CLOSE to being a “one-hit wonder” is Rick Springfield’s biggest secret, then his even BIGGER secret is that he has continued to make some amazing post-eighties music.  After keeping relatively quiet throughout the nineties, he returned in 1999 with “Karma”.  The album wasn’t great, but it featured the likeable single “It’s Always Something”.

“Karma” was not a commercial success, only peaking at #189, though it did create a spark and prompted Rick to start touring again.

It would be five years before he would release another album, 2004’s “Shock/Anger/Denial/Acceptance”.  The album would live up to its title with darker themes and a harder edge.  The first single was “Beautiful You”, which managed to crack the top 30 on the adult contemporary chart, although the album did not chart.

The following year, Rick would release “The Day After Yesterday”, which was an album of eighties covers that he described as “songs I wish I had written”.  As much as I like Rick, I would have to describe it as “songs I wish he had left alone”.

It was followed in 2007 with a holiday album entitled “Christmas with You”.  Both albums performed meagerly, but kept him in the public consciousness to a degree.  It was also during this period that he returned to General Hospital and his role as Dr. Noah Drake after a 23-year absence.

A year later, Rick stormed back with his best album since 1983’s “Living in Oz”.  “Venus in Overdrive” made it all the way to #28 on Billboard’s Top 200 fueled by the “Jessie’s Girl”-esque “What’s Victoria’s Secret?”.

Other highlights included the reggae-tinged title track, the Foo Fighters-ish “Time Stand Still” and the beautiful “Saint Sahara”, which Rick wrote for a young fan who died of brain cancer.

He would follow that in 2009 with “My Precious Little One:  Lullabies for a New Generation”.  The true follow-up to “Venus in Overdrive”, however, would be 2012’s “Songs for the End of the World”.  The album was almost as good as VIO and would also make a considerable dent in Billboard’s album chart, peaking at #44.  The lead-off single was “I Hate Myself”.

And that pretty much brings you up-to-date on Rick Springfield.  His newest album came out earlier this year.  It’s called “Stripped Down” and it’s full of acoustic versions of some of his biggest hits.  He’s currently on tour with Loverboy and The Romantics.