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With 1988s somewhat surprising OUT OF ORDER release, Rod showed the music world once again that he was artistically firing on all cylinders. After having issued three inconsistent and patchy albums, he offers up a much stronger set of songs than he had in quite some time. To be sure, there were many very good to great tracks scattered throughout those discs, but they just didn’t jell particularly well as albums. Without a doubt, OUT OF ORDER was his best album since 1981s solid four-star TONIGHT I’M YOURS. Rod spent a good part of 1987 in the recording studio and was rewarded for his time and efforts with a double platinum plus seller in the US (strangely, it was less successful in the UK but still sold 100,000 copies and went gold) which also resulted for the first time ever in four top 40 hit singles, and actually the album is full of potential hits. Even more importantly, he wheels out several winning originals (his songwriting is a big part of what makes OUT OF ORDER so appealing) with a production job that packs a big wallop. It was his hardest, most aggressive sounding ’80s album by far and generally garnered very positive reviews by the music press. Everything works: the sleeve, the title, the cover material, even the sequencing is pretty good. But most significantly, all his compositions are satisfying tales with equally effective rockers and ballads. These exceptionally good recordings were helped a great deal by the enthusiastic production assistants of guitarist and co-songwriting partner (and good drinking buddy), Duran Duran’s Andy Taylor (now, who would’ve thought that this collaboration would have worked so well?) and with the highly talented producer/musician Bernard Edwards – making sure that things are kept smooth and tight music wise, and he also played first-rate bass on the majority of the tracks. Taylor and Edwards brought with them that same rhythmic, harder rock, funk sound that they had used on the Power Station album so successfully
Photo Shanlee Johnson