Tommy Tutone-2
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Album Summary
Tommy Tutone-2 is the second studio album from San Francisco's own Tommy Tutone — that hook-slinging, heart-racing pop rock outfit led by the dynamic duo of Tommy Heath and Jim Keller — released in 1981 on Columbia Records. Produced by Peter Bernstein, this record was cut at a moment when the band had real wind at their backs, channeling their new wave-inflected power pop energy into something Columbia was banking on to take them all the way to the top of the mainstream rock landscape. The production is clean, bright, and radio-ready, with just enough edge to remind you these cats knew their way around a guitar, and the result is an album that crackles with the spirit of early 1980s rock and roll ambition.
Reception
- The album rode high on the extraordinary commercial force of '867-5309/Jenny,' which blazed its way into the top 5 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became one of the most instantly recognizable singles of the entire decade.
- Critics tipped their hats to the album's infectious, energetic pop rock personality, though more than a few noted that the gravitational pull of '867-5309/Jenny' cast a long shadow over the rest of the record's considerable charms.
- The strength of '867-5309/Jenny' earned Tommy Tutone serious real estate on radio playlists and early MTV rotation, putting the band's faces and sound in front of a generation of rock fans during one of the most exciting periods in music history.
Significance
- '867-5309/Jenny' grew far beyond a hit single into a full-blown cultural institution — that phone number took on a life of its own, generating a phenomenon that has never truly faded, showing up in conversations, pranks, and pop culture references for decades running.
- Tommy Tutone-2 stands as a proud monument to the new wave and power pop movement of the early 1980s, capturing that sweet spot where jangly guitar energy met the polished, FM-friendly production that was defining the sound of a generation.
- Through extensive licensing in film, television, and advertising over the years, '867-5309/Jenny' has ensured that this album's cultural footprint stretches far beyond its original chart run, keeping the Tommy Tutone name alive and beloved across multiple generations of listeners.
Tracklist
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A1 867-5309/Jenny 137
3:48
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A2 Baby It's Alright 137
3:22
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A3 Shadow On The Road Ahead 134
3:34
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A4 Bernadiah 110
5:28
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A5 Why Baby Why 124
2:59
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B1 Which Man Are You 113
2:51
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B2 No Way To Cry 106
3:07
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B3 Steal Away 112
3:49
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B4 Tonight 81
2:40
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B5 Only One 118
3:24
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B6 Not Say Goodbye 153
3:27
Artist Details
Tommy Tutone was a new wave and power pop outfit that came together in San Francisco in the late 1970s, led by Tommy Heath and guitarist Jim Keller, cooking up a sound that was bright, punchy, and radio-ready in all the right ways. They hit the stratosphere in 1982 with the immortal "867-5309/Jenny," a hook so infectious it permanently burned that phone number into the collective consciousness of an entire generation and landed them firmly in the MTV era hall of fame. Though they never quite replicated that lightning-in-a-bottle moment, that one song cemented Tommy Tutone as a beloved piece of American pop culture history, even inspiring real-life chaos as people across the country started dialing that number just to see who'd answer.
