Mr. Mister
Go On...

Many would have bet at the time on a stable and lasting success for these Californians, Mr. Mister, after they managed to break through in the mid-eighties with the singles "Broken Wings" and "Kyrie" and with the album that contained both "Welcome To The Real World". The great commercial success was then running parallel with considerable esteem and regard from industry professionals and music experts in general: in other words, Mr. Mister was perceived as one of those musical entities capable of functioning on different levels, good both for pubescent boys and girls (handsome frontman, danceable rhythms...) and for music enthusiasts looking for skilled musicians, convincing melodies, brilliant arrangements, interesting lyrics.

However, no, the group's star quickly dimmed and it was precisely this album, released a couple of years after their major breakthrough, that made an unexpected flop, blatantly contradicting its programmatic title ("Go On...") and leading to the termination of their record contract with the multinational, with a consequent halt to the publication of their next work, already well-prepared and titled "Pull" (for the record, it resurfaced thirty years later, in 2010).

Even if not on Mr. Mister as a band, many would have bet at least on their singer/bassist/composer Richard Page, a talented blond capable then of turning down a spot in the lineup offered by both Chicago (over one hundred million records sold in their career) and Toto (around forty million), two absolute champions of virtuous and yet commercial music, thus compromising an extensive artistic and media exposure and also a solid economic comfort.

The musician is indeed first-rate: a clear and high voice somewhat like Sting's but more powerful and harmonic, good skill on the instrument and above all excellent melodic ideas (the simple but brilliant bass line of "Broken Wings", with its cyclical suspensions and unconventional accents, became a model). Instead, Page ended up as a songwriter (successful, but still sidelined) for Madonna, Céline Dion, Meat Loaf, Hall & Oates, and many others, as well as strengthening the choirs with his august voice on albums by Toto, Survivor, Sammy Hagar, REO Speedwagon, and thousands of others. Our man also put together three or four solo albums, but only a few paid attention to them.

What's wrong with "Go On..." that it sold a tenth of its predecessor? Nothing: the sound is the very same, the way of composing and conceiving pop-rock still elegant and brilliant, sophisticated but not too much, virtuous but accessible. The roles of the four musicians remain the same: Page is the voice, the image, the melody, the star (in theory); keyboardist Steve George is the backbone of the compositions with his sonorous and creative work on keyboards and synthesizers; guitarist Steve Farris is talented but has a more sidelined role, less structural... he adorns and enriches, funks up and messes around with the lever incredibly. His instrument, constantly using chorus and tremolo lever, ends up losing incisiveness, always trembling and lacking body. Drummer Pat Mastelotto (who would years later join Robert Fripp's court in King Crimson) goes all out with real and fake drums, subject to the sound trends of those years that imposed a brutal reverb treatment on the snare, the same fate as Page's bass, which often has to be doubled by synth lines.

There's no big hit, the very well-made song like all the others but also very catchy like "Broken Wings" was (but not "Kyrie", truly modest and undeserving of the number one spot on the charts it also reached): it's incredible how the perception of one record compared to another can change just because one has a leading track and the other does not. That's how it went, and so ended the career of Mr. Mister, with this fine pop/funky rock album halfway between Duran Duran (please... a million times better!) and Toto.