Let's Get Soft: Air Supply, "The One That You Love"

You can't talk about the adult contemporary music of the 1980s without discussing Air Supply. Their hits established the template for that format during the decade to such a degree that if you're at all susceptible to soft rock in general, I'm not sure it's possible to avoid having a favorite Air Supply song. As much as it might seem like they owned the '80s, though, the reality is that their commercial peak was condensed to a torrid three-year span between 1980 and 1983, when they peeled off a string of eight Top 10 hits before abruptly fading from mainstream relevance.

I think it's important to note here that the band still has legions of devoted fans, enough to support a tour schedule that remained vigorous for decades after program directors stopped taking them seriously, and unlike a lot of their peers, they continued releasing albums of new material on a regular basis well into the 21st century. And the reason I'm compelled to note this is the way Air Supply's brief reign is commonly treated, which is as a temporary collective psychosis that has never been explained, but we fortunately all somehow survived.

I thought a lot about all this for the first time while prepping this post. While I've listened to my fair share of Air Supply, I've never really tried to analyze its popularity and/or lack thereof — in fact, because I didn't start writing about music professionally until after they'd been consigned to has-been status, the only Air Supply records I'd ever heard in full were ones released after the band stopped selling, specifically 1991's The Earth Is... and 1993's The Vanishing Race. (They are both not-quite concept albums, the first a plea for a more environmentally friendly society and the second a lamentation for Native American suffering; their existence in the context of the Air Supply discography is well worth a post of its own, albeit one which I tend to doubt will be written by me.)

Of course, Air Supply were far from the only balladeers to reap outsized chart success in the early '80s, and they were also not alone in being the target of mockery after the hits stopped coming. What sets them apart, I think, is that whole template thing I mentioned in the first paragraph. This band's approach to making love songs really did help shape the output of countless acts to follow. Whether or not that influence was conscious or intentional is another story, but they had an awful lot to do with refining the power ballad formula.

They weren't the first to explore the power ballad's commercial potential, of course, but they did add a few trestles to the bridge between more theatrical early examples and the harder-rocking stuff that came later. I don't think you can go from "Without You" or Styx's "Lady" to later hits from harder-rocking acts like Journey or Foreigner without Air Supply's particular genius, which basically amounted to finding the X on the musical map between Barry Manilow and Meat Loaf, then digging until they hit platinum. Loath as some may be to admit it, songs like "Open Arms" and "I Want to Know What Love Is" and, I dunno, "High Enough" are all cut from the same swatch of hot air balloon fabric.

The main difference, I think, is one of overall intent. Where those songs were all presented as brief breaks in the rock 'n' roll program, Air Supply were only ever about the love, and to their credit, they never tried to pretend otherwise. While it's true that they've long insisted that they're more of a rock band than most give them credit for, and it's also true that their live show is widely seen as being much more dynamic than their albums, their mission statement has never wavered beyond giving voice to love.

"I think it's very silly for anyone to deny it plays a tremendous part in everyone's life, regardless of whether you're 6 or 60, whether you love your dog or your mom," lead singer Russell Hitchcock told the Pittsburgh Press in 1981. "We get very touching letters from people saying, 'I was thinking of jumping out the window until I heard your song.' And it's great to think you can produce the sort of music that touches people very deeply."

While we may tend to doubt the veracity of the second part of that statement, there's no doubting the sincerity behind the band's music. Air Supply arrived on the American airwaves like a bolt out of the blue with "Lost in Love" in 1980, but by the time they achieved their big international breakthrough, they'd really been plugging away for a fairly long time, and doing it through some fairly dire financial straits. Their journey started in the mid-'70s, when Hitchcock stumbled into a musical bond with singer-songwriter Graham Russell while they were both part of the Australian touring company of Jesus Christ Superstar. According to Russell, Hitchcock was basically a glorified extra for the first six months; it was only when he happened to hear his future partner singing in harmony with a fellow cast member that he first got a feel for his talent. Russell wedged himself in, and before long, the makeshift trio became a duo that he dubbed Air Supply.

"It just seemed to fit somehow," Hitchcock later told the Virginia Daily Press. "What we were offering the listeners during a period of heavy metal rocking was like a breath of fresh air, and of course air means melody, and harmony has always been a strong factor in the group."

At first, it seemed like the world — or at least Australia — was waiting for them. Their first single, "Love and Other Bruises," was a Top 10 hit in their native territory, netting them a slot opening for Rod Stewart on his 1977 world tour. Expecting to be hailed as conquering heroes upon their return, they were met with resounding indifference — an obstacle they'd continue to face for years, even after breaking out in the United States. It wasn't until their fourth album, the aptly named Life Support, that they scored another hit; this time, however, it would lead to worldwide sales success.

That song, "Lost in Love," caught the ear of Clive Davis, who was happy to find Air Supply on the exiting end of their deal with CBS. He signed them to his Arista label, had them re-record it for their next album, doubled down on the bet by encouraging them to name that album Lost in Love, and then presumably laughed his ass off when it produced three Top Five singles: "Every Woman in the World" (No. 5), "All Out of Love" (No. 2), and, of course, the No. 1 title track.

Lost in Love arrived in stores in March of 1980. Never one to miss an opportunity to feed the bottom line like a fois gras goose, Davis scheduled its follow-up, The One That You Love, for May of 1981 — just a few weeks after Lost in Love's final single crested on the Hot 100. As tended to be the case throughout his career, Davis' instincts paid off: The One That You Love peaked at No. 10, sold a million-plus copies, and brought them three more Top Five hits.

Of course, it wasn't just momentum that did the trick. The One That You Love is a record full of velour-coated bangers, the type of album whose only necessary critical response is "If you like this type of music, you'll love these songs." And as dismissive as that type of reaction might seem, it's also sort of the highest compliment you can give music that is simultaneously commercially oriented and wholly earnest.

Russell was able to manage the quick turnaround partly by virtue of the fact that he's a prolific writer, and partly due to Davis' traditional eagerness to turn to outside songwriters. There's no question he knew he'd signed a hitmaker in Russell, but I'm not sure he ever met an act whose output he didn't think could be improved by songs for hire, and Air Supply was no exception. Russell ended up contributing seven songs to The One That You Love (one of which, "I Want to Give It All," was a co-write with guitarist Rex Goh), while three others were shopped in. the eventual No. 5 hit "Here I Am" was penned by Norman Saleet, who came in hot off songs he'd written for Bobby Vinton, Barry White, and Debby Boone; "Keeping the Love Alive" came via temporary Aerosmith guitarist and future Richie Sambora collaborator Richard Supa; and "I'll Never Get Enough of You" was co-written by a three-person team that included Gary Portnoy, who'd soon become famous for writing and recording the theme to Cheers. You could always call him a meddler, but only rarely could you doubt Davis' commercial instincts.

It would be inaccurate to say that the critical response to The One That You Love was overwhelmingly positive — "Casual listeners may be surprised to learn that all seven Air Supply members are male," jabbed the Omaha World-Herald — but it was also a lot less negative than some of those writers would probably later like to claim. In general, the reviews that greeted the record, as well as the many tour dates that followed, acknowledged the polished songcraft that helped broaden their appeal. As they climbed toward the apex of their cultural reach, the founding members of the band looked down upon their domain, and they saw that it was good.

"When you turn on the television, the radio, you get hit with all this negativism, political strife, wars," Russell told the Winnipeg Sun. "People want something soothing as an alternative. They're fed up with strife. They want to go back to the romance and the basics, what we sing about."

"You know," mused Hitchcock, "it's finally, finally all right to enjoy what some people have referred to as wimp music. To say I love you. There is finally a place for us."

In hindsight, it's easy to see the storm that was already brewing on the horizon, waiting to send the good ship Air Supply plummeting back to earth. While perusing reviews from the tour in support of this record, I found numerous references to the band's largely female fanbase, which has frequently been used as a(n ever so slightly) coded way of telling people that the act in question should never be taken seriously. Between that and the looming backlash against the perceived Aldafication of the American male, the band's imperial phase was probably always destined to be short-lived — and it seems safe to assume that Arista knew it, given that the label had the gall to release a greatest hits record in 1983. The set's new song, "Making Love Out of Nothing at All" — featuring production by Jim Steinman, the world's most natural fit — went to No. 2, but that was pretty much it. When they returned with Air Supply in 1985, leadoff single "Just As I Am" peaked at No. 19 on the strength of program directors figuring they might as well place a safe bet; after that, they were exiled from the Top 40 airwaves, never to return.

You'd almost be tempted to call it an embarrassing end to a once-promising chart run, but I'm not sure there's any such thing as embarrassment in Air Supply's world, and I mean that as a wholehearted compliment. Their records had intentional commercial appeal, but they were also, pretty much to a song, about having the courage to be who you are and say what you feel, regardless of the consequences. If the object of your affection rejects you, if the world sees fit to mock you, well, those are just more feelings to process, openly and unapologetically.

As I noted going in, losing their cultural cachet didn't really put a dent in Air Supply's output. After leaving Arista, they signed with Irving Azoff's Giant Records, where they released five albums over the span of a decade; since leaving Giant, they've recorded more sporadically, but they've also been together for more than 50 years at this point, and plenty of acts of their vintage have stopped seeing the point in releasing new albums at all, so I count it as nothing but a victory that their 18th and possibly final LP, A Matter of Time, arrived earlier this year. The Air Supply tour calendar remains as crowded as ever; as I write this, they have dates lined up through early 2027, and an itinerary leading them across North and South America.

Perhaps the best part of the story, though, is that — fittingly for a couple of guys who've made a living out of singing about love — Hitchcock and Russell still seem to genuinely like each other. Unlike certain other duos who transparently kept going mainly for the money, Air Supply still appears to be the outgrowth of affection between its creative principals. Sure, their stuff might be corny, and yeah, there have probably been moments when it bugged them to know they were the butt of jokes, but if there's a higher calling than performing paeans to life's purest emotion with someone whose company you truly enjoy, I'm not sure I can think of it right now.

"He writes songs, and I can’t write. He never wanted to be a lead singer. He’s 6’5” and blonde, and I’m 5’7” and not blonde," Hitchcock told Unlocking Connecticut in a 2018 interview. "Everything that could have meshed together at the right time, and still to this day, did. We don’t see each other when we’re not working. So when we get back together when we’re on the road, it’s always a pleasure to see him. We just enjoy each other’s company. We still have major fun on the road. There’s not a day that goes by that we don’t have a big laugh. We just love what we do. It’s just a blessing to be able to say after so long... that we’re still performing at a high level. There’s no downside to what we do."