On this day in 1984, Sports, the album from Huey Lewis and the News became the number one album in America.
The album would stay on the charts for a whopping 160 weeks! It was a career changing album for the band.
Sports was the third album for Huey Lewis and the News. Their first one came and went pretty much unnoticed. Picture This from 1982 included their first hit song, “Do You Believe In Love?” The first four singles from Sports would all go Top 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and the Billboard Top Rock Tracks chart (Heart and Soul, I Want a New Drug, The Heart of Rock and Roll, and If This Is It).
Fun Fact: In 1984, there were only 5 number one albums. Sports was #1 for one week. The others were Purple Rain (22 weeks at #1 in 1984), Thriller (15 weeks at #1 in 1984), Born in the USA (4 weeks at #1 in 1984), and the soundtrack from Footloose (10 weeks at #1 in 1984).
The fourth single was “If This Is It.” It was released shortly after the album went to number one. According to songfacts.com: The music inspired the lyric. Huey Lewis & the News saxophone player Johnny Colla, who also did lots of their arrangements, wrote the track and scatted out placeholder words for Lewis’ lyrics. Nothing came to him, but then one day on the tour bus it hit him.
He told songfacts,com “I was in my bunk and I had this epiphany. The song is major and minor together sometimes, so it’s complicated, and the music is telling me that there’s confusion in there. That’s when I got ‘If This Is It.’ That might not make any sense, but it made sense to me.”
The band took advantage of MTV and had a lot of fun in their videos. The video for “If This Is It” is no exception. It was directed by Edd Griles and takes place on a beach. The video finds Huey walking around the beach while all kids of things are happening around him.
One shot from the video would go on to appear in many of MTV’s promos – the shot of one of the women sunbathing in front of Huey’s five bandmates whose heads are popping out of the sand, singing in unison. It is an iconic clip. Check it out for yourself …
Various Ramblings of a Nostalgic Italian 
Five number one albums in the whole year?! That’s crazy!
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I thought the same thing
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I forgot about the video for this one, I remember the one for “I Want A New Drug’ with him in his red suit washing up and taking a boat across the bay. In retrospect, a good album. I bought the LP and listened to it a lot then but never got it on CD and they kind of fell off my radar when I wasn’t hearing ‘The heart of Rock n Roll’ on an oldies station, but looking back I wouldn’t mind having it again. Speaking of ‘Heart of rock n roll’ he did a nice remix for Canada where he shouted out ‘Toronto! Mon-TREE-all!” at the end .
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I loved “Sports” and got it on vinyl shortly after it had come out. In fact, that was the album that got me into Huey Lewis and the News.
I’ve heard different opinions about the group. I’ve always liked them and seen them twice – once in Germany in the late ’80s, and a second time in the US in 2010. Both shows were great
It’s a pity Lewis can no longer perform due to Ménière’s disease, but I guess he’s had a pretty good ride while it lasted.
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I loved Sports, too! I’ve always been a fan. They did an acapella song called “Naturally” on (I think) the Fore album. SO good. Their album of all the 50’s and 60’s covers was fantastic, too!
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They also did an excellent a capella version of the Impressions’ “It’s Alright.”
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Absolutely! I loved that one.
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Great album and in good company, didn’t realize there were only five no 1s that year! Way to go, Huey!
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