Heavy Nova is the tenth solo album by Robert Palmer, released in 1988. His first album for EMI Records

EMI Records

EMI Records is the flagship record label founded by the EMI company in 1972 and launched in January 1973 as the successor to its Columbia label. The EMI label was launched worldwide...

 after a 15-year association with Island Records

Island Records

Island Records is a record label that was founded by Chris Blackwell in Jamaica. It was based in the United Kingdom for many years and is now owned by Universal Music Group...

 (both with Vinegar Joe

Vinegar Joe (band)

Vinegar Joe were a British R&B band. They issued three albums on Island Records, but were best known for their live shows and launching the solo careers of Elkie Brooks and Robert Palmer.-History:...

 and as a solo artist), it followed Palmer's very popular album Riptide

Riptide (album)

Riptide is the ninth solo album by the British singer Robert Palmer, released in November 1985. It featured his hit single "Addicted to Love" which reached #1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1986, helped by a memorable music video...

.

Heavy Nova continued Palmer's popularity with the single "Simply Irresistible

Simply Irresistible (song)

"Simply Irresistible" is the first single released from the 1988 studio album Heavy Nova by Robert Palmer and is presented in one of the most distinctive and memorable music videos of the 1980s....

", which spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard

Billboard (magazine)

Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...

Mainstream Rock Tracks chart in the U.S. The name Heavy Nova derives from Palmer's love of both heavy metal and bossa nova rhythms.

The album was recorded at Logic Studios, Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

, Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 and Compass Point Studios

Compass Point Studios

Compass Point Studios were founded in 1977 by Chris Blackwell, the owner of Island Records.In the late 1970s and mid-1980s, many musical artists from across the world came to the Bahamas to record music at its facilities. Many producers, including Chris Blackwell himself, used the studio to produce...

 Bahamas.

The album peaked at No. 13 in the US, No. 17 in the UK and No. 15 in Netherland. The album was certified US Platinum by RIAA in November 1988 and UK Gold by BPI in November 1988. It remains Palmer's second most successful album worldwide, behind his 1980 album Clues.

Track listing

All songs by Robert Palmer except where noted.

1. "Simply Irresistible
   Simply Irresistible (song)
   "Simply Irresistible" is the first single released from the 1988 studio album Heavy Nova by Robert Palmer and is presented in one of the most distinctive and memorable music videos of the 1980s....
   
   " – 4:14
2. "More Than Ever" – 3:25
3. "Change His Ways" – 2:56
4. "Disturbing Behaviour" – 3:45
5. "Early in the Morning" (Lonnie Simmons, Rudy Taylor, Charlie Wilson
   Charlie Wilson (musician)
   Charles Kent "Charlie" Wilson is an American R&B singer-songwriter-producer and the former lead vocalist for the Gap Band. As a solo artist he has been nominated for four Grammy awards, received a 2009 Soul Train Icon Award, and a recipient of a BMI Icon Award in 2005...
   
   ) – 4:42
6. "It Could Happen to You
   It Could Happen to You (song)
   "It Could Happen to You" is a popular standard with music by Jimmy Van Heusen and lyrics by Johnny Burke. The song was written in 1944 and was introduced by Dorothy Lamour in the Paramount musical comedy film, And the Angels Sing....
   
   " (Johnny Burke
   Johnny Burke (lyricist)
   Johnny Burke was a lyricist, widely regarded as one of the finest writers of popular songs in America between the 1920s and 1950s.-Biography:...
   
   , Jimmy Van Heusen) – 2:32
7. "She Makes My Day" – 4:23
8. "Between Us" – 4:49
9. "Casting a Spell" – 3:57
10. "Tell Me I'm Not Dreaming
    Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin' (Too Good to Be True)
    "Tell Me I'm Not Dreamin' " is the title of a duet featuring American brothers Jermaine and Michael Jackson, taken from Jermaine Jackson's 1984 album, which was called Jermaine Jackson in the U.S. and Dynamite in the U.K. and other countries...
    
    " (Michael Omartian
    Michael Omartian
    Michael Omartian is an Armenian-American singer-songwriter, keyboardist, and music producer. He has been a participant in over 350,000,000 albums and CD’s sold worldwide, as a producer, arranger, artist or musician, during a career that has spanned over 38 years...
    
    , Bruce Sudano
    Bruce Sudano
    Bruce Charles Sudano is a singer/songwriter/producer best known for his collaboration with and marriage to singer Donna Summer, and the group he co-founded, Brooklyn Dreams....
    
    , Jay Gruska) – 3:46

Personnel

• Robert Palmer - Vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  , producer
• Tim Kramer - Engineer
  Audio engineering
  An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
  
  
• Bookie Espie - Assistant engineer
• Eric "E.T." Thorngren - Mixing
• Scott Forman - Assistant engineer
• Roy Sweeting - Assistant engineer (at Compass Point)
• Peter Bascombe - Production coordinator
• David Harper - Executive producer
• Dony Wynn - Drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  
• Frank Blair - Bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  
• William Bryant - Keyboards
• Eddie Martinez
  Eddie Martinez
  Eddie Martinez is an American guitarist, born and raised in New York City, who mainly functions as a session musician. He has worked with David Lee Roth , Run-D.M.C. , Robert Palmer , Meat Loaf , several Jim Steinman projects, and many others...
  
   - Guitar
  Guitar
  The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
  
  
• Dom Um Romão
  Dom Um Romão
  Dom Um Romão was a Brazilian jazz drummer and percussionist. Noted for his expressive stylings with the fusion band Weather Report, Romão recorded with varied artists such as Cannonball Adderley, Paul Simon, Antonio Carlos Jobim, Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66 and Tony Bennett...
  
   - Percussion
• Clare Fischer
  Clare Fischer
  Clare Fischer is an American composer, arranger, pianist and organist. His parents were of German, French, Irish-Scot, and English backgrounds.-Early years:...
  
   - Strings
• Chuck Findley
  Chuck Findley
  Chuck Findley is an American session musician. Most widely-known as a trumpet player, he also plays other brass instruments such as flugelhorn and trombone...
  
   - Trumpet
  Trumpet
  The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
  
  
• Garth Hudson
  Garth Hudson
  Eric Garth Hudson is a Canadian multi-instrumentalist. As the organist, keyboardist and saxophonist for Canadian-American rock group The Band, he was a principal architect of the group's unique sound...
  
   - Accordion
  Accordion
  The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
  
  , keyboards
• Tom "T-Bone" Wolk - Accordion
• Luka Belak - Violin
  Violin
  The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
  
  
• Richard Gibbs - Keyboards
• Jeff Bova
  Jeff Bova
  Jeff Bova is an American Grammy Award winning keyboardist, composer, arranger and record producer. He has been active in music industry since the mid-1970s, contributing to dozens of recordings by significant mainstream artists like Celine Dion, Michael Jackson, Blondie, Eric Clapton, Joe Cocker,...
  
   - Keyboards
• Misha Schneider - Keyboards
• Dennis Budemir - Guitar
• John Grey - Guitar, Percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  
• Barry "Sun John" Johnson - Bass
• Joey Faahar - Drums
• Robyn Lobe - Percussion
• Tina Ann Hart - Backing vocals
• Cover Photograph and Design by Susan Palmer