Heartland

Heartland is an album by the Michael Stanley Band released in 1980. It reached #86 on the Billboard 200 album chart in 1981. The album stayed in the top 100 for over eight weeks and was in the top 200 for an additional ten weeks. Recording and release Arguably the biggest album of the Cleveland, Ohio–based rock group, Heartland was released in 1980, after the band was dropped from Arista Records following their mediocre-charting Greatest Hints album. The band was not convinced that they could come back from a fall down the charts, as Greatest Hints only reached number #148 on the Billboard magazine album chart. The band continued on without a label and recorded the album that would become their US breakthrough, Heartland. The band planned to release the masterwork independently, however, EMI America Records picked up both the band and the Heartland album upon its completion. The album peaked at #86 in Billboard in 1981. Chart successes and fallout Heartland proved to be the album the band had been waiting since the 1970s to see. However, speculation regarding lack of touring, limited radio play, weak support from EMI America, and the band being exhausted from trying year after year to crack the top of the charts have been blamed for the apparent fall that occurred after the Heartland bonanza the band enjoyed. Singles The album spawned the band's highest-charting single, "He Can't Love You", which reached #33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1981. The song features a surging sax lick by Clarence Clemons that makes it instantly recognizable. The album featured another single, "Lover", rising to a respectable #68 on the charts and staying there for over two weeks. It featured the iconic lyric "thank God for the man who put the white lines on the highway", which was sung back by the audiences to Stanley whenever he performed the song live.