Thirty years ago in 1983, Huey Lewis and The News released Sports. The San Francisco band’s third album would become their most successful, selling over 7 million copies. Though the actual anniversary date doesn’t arrive until September, this week brought a remastered edition of Sports, expanded to include live versions of the album’s original nine tracks (read more via my pals at The Second Disc).

Four singles from Sports reached the top 10 — “Heart And Soul” (#8), “I Want a New Drug” (#6), “The Heart of Rock & Roll” (#6), and “If This is It” (#6) — while a fifth, the Vietnam War-inspired “Walking On A Thin Line,” topped out at #18. This week in 1984, third single “The Heart Of Rock & Roll” was climbing the Billboard Hot 100 at #21, while previous offering “I Want A New Drug” was spending its last week on the chart at #88.

My favorite single from Sports was the album’s first, “Heart And Soul.” As I discovered only as I gathered information for this flashback, “Heart And Soul” was actually a cover of a song recorded and released two years earlier by Exile. The Kentucky rockers didn’t get what they wanted, bubbling under the Hot 100 at #102. Comparatively speaking, Huey Lewis and the News hit “Heart And Soul” out of the park:

Though Sports only spent a single week at #1 in June 1984, the album finished second to Michael Jackson’s Thriller on Billboard’s year-end ranking. Amazingly, Huey Lewis and The News beat out Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The U.S.A., Prince and the Revolution’s Purple Rain soundtrack, and the Footloose soundtrack.

Purchase Huey Lewis and The News – Sports (30th Anniversary Edition) via iTunes, Amazon MP3.