Michael Bolton's first Columbia album had offered some reason to suspect he had a future in the pop-rock mainstream despite his arena rock tendencies. But on his second album, he endeavored to make a metal-tinged copy of Foreigner, one in which even his distinctive voice was a minor element among the guitar solos and keyboard flourishes. Bolton wrote or co-wrote all the material, but much of the time he seemed to be fighting to be heard, and when he was, all he had was a mouthful of cliches to offer. When this album missed the charts, it looked like the singer was going down for the third and last time.