Bryan Adams’ ‘Reckless’ turns 40: ‘I knew going into this record that I had something special’

Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of Bryan Adams’ fourth studio album, Reckless, which was a huge commercial success for the Canadian rocker.

The album’s release coincided with Adams’ 25th birthday and it hit #1 on the Billboard 200 Album chart — to this day it’s Adams’ only #1 record in the U.S.

But even before the release and the chart success, Adams knew Reckless was a good one. 

“I knew going into this record that I had something special,” he tells ABC Audio. “I knew that when we recorded the first couple of tracks for the record that we were on to something really good.”

He added, “We didn’t know really what we’d created, we just [knew] we liked it. And that was the test, you know?” 

The album spawned six singles, including the #1 hit “Heaven”; “Summer of ’69,” which went to #5; the Tina Turner duet “It’s Only Love”; “Somebody”; and “One Night Love Affair.” But for Adams, it was the album’s first single, “Run To You,” which went to #6, that was the standout.

“The magical songs that came out of it obviously are the ones that were some of the biggest hits, and one of them, of course, was ‘Run to You,’” he says. “For me, ‘Run to You’ was the jewel of the album, because … it just set the tone for everything.” 

Reckless went on to sell 12 million copies worldwide and is Adams’ second-highest-selling record in the U.S. behind 1991’s Waking Up The Neighbors. The album went on to be certified five-times Platinum in the U.S.