| Heart Shaped World | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by Chris Isaak | ||||
| Released | June 1989 | |||
| Recorded | 1988 | |||
| Genre | Rockabilly, Roots rock, Rock'n'roll | |||
| Label | Reprise | |||
| Producer | Erik Jacobsen | |||
| Chris Isaak chronology | ||||
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Heart Shaped World is the third album by Chris Isaak. Released in 1989, it became his breakthrough album and featured the Top 10 hit "Wicked Game". The album was certified 3x Platinum by the RIAA and has to date sold about 2.6 million copies in the United States according to Nielsen Soundscan.
Contents |
All tracks composed by Chris Isaak; except where indicated
| Professional ratings | |
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| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic | [1] |
When Heart Shaped World was released in the summer of 1989, it was on Billboard's pop album chart for ten weeks, reaching no higher than No. 149; but in October 1990, after Lee Chesnut, music director of WAPW in Atlanta, played the song repeatedly over two weeks after hearing an instrumental version on the soundtrack from the 1990 David Lynch film Wild at Heart, "Wicked Game" was released as a single and the album reached the 7th spot on the chart, garnering sales of more than 500,000 copies.[2] Probably more important in propelling single and album sales, though, was the steamy video featuring a nude Helena Christensen and topless Isaak in the surf and on the beach. Filmed in black and white, the video was in heavy rotation on MTV, back when they still showed music videos.
In March 1991, Entertainment Weekly described the scene at the sold-out start of his post-"Wicked Game" release tour:[3]
Reprise staged a gaudy, sold-out gig at L.A.'s Wiltern Theater. Sean Penn was there. So were Eric Roberts, k.d. lang, Dwight Yoakam, and, standing discreetly in a side aisle, Bruce Springsteen and Patti Scialfa. There were lots of young girls, whose screaming Isaak may have to get used to. Afterward came The Hollywood Party, where, amid more dazzling stars, Isaak (decked out in his shiny brocade stage suit) got his first gold record while the waiters passed around goat cheese quesadillas and a Hawaiian band played in the background. It was a lot to handle, but then, as Isaak had said the night before..., "I used to tar-paper roofs for a living. So, as far as I'm concerned, this is a pretty fun job."
At the first of a May 1991 two-night stand at the Beacon Theatre in New York City—the first in that city after "Wicked Game" became a top 10 hit— Isaak's performance was characterized as "consummate showmanship": performances "right on the edge of caricature" yet with the ability to "infuse the ballads "Wicked Game" and "Blue Spanish Sky" ... with a spine-tingling intensity."[4]
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