1983 Sheena Easton – Best Kept Secret

Best Kept Secret is the fourth album by Scottish singer Sheena Easton. It was released in 1983 on EMI Records.

The album marked a slight change of direction in Easton’s career. Prior to this album, Easton’s first three albums had all been recorded in London with producer Christopher Neil. For Best Kept Secret, Sheena Easton dismissed Neil as her producer and hired American producers Greg Mathieson, Jay Graydon, and Trevor Veitch who had previously worked with Laura Branigan, and the album became her first recorded entirely in the United States where the singer had been more consistently popular than in her native UK (She had also cut the #6 hit duet with Kenny Rogers, “We’ve Got Tonight”, in her first American recording session).

The songs on Best Kept Secret alternated between dance tracks in the Eurodisco mode of Laura Branigan’s signature tune “Gloria” and ballads. The album’s lead single was the dance track “Telefone (Long Distance Love Affair)” which became Easton’s third solo hit to reach the US Top Ten with a #9 peak on the Billboard Hot 100 and was Grammy nominated. The second single was the ballad “Almost Over You” (#25) and another dance track “Devil in a Fast Car” was subsequently issued as a single to reach #79.

Best Kept Secret peaked at #33 on the Billboard 200 album chart with a chart duration of 38 weeks. Neither the album nor its singles had high chart impact in the UK, Best Kept Secret charting there at #99 while “Telefone…” and “Almost Over You” had respective UK peaks of #84 and #89. French-Canadian singer Véronique Béliveau recorded a cover of “She’s In Love (With Her Radio)” in French, entitled “Je suis fidèle” which reached number 1 status Québec in 1983.

In Canada both the Best Kept Secret album and “Telefone…” single were certified Gold by the CRIA.

Best Kept Secret was reissued in 2000 on One Way Records, adding the hit duet “We’ve Got Tonight” with Kenny Rogers. On November 24, 2014 the album was included in an Original Album Series box set in the UK with all of her first 5 albums with EMI through Warner Music Group, who now owns the rights to all of EMI’s back catalogs.