It was 1986, and to get an idea of how things were going with Huey Lewis and the News, one needed look no further than the music video released to accompany the band’s latest single, “Stuck With You.” Before diving into its good-natured, off-kilter desert-island shenanigans, the promo video opened with a scene featuring Lewis at a party, where one after another asks how things are going with the new album. Every inquirer is portrayed as smarmy and insincere, but oily nagging aside, the truth is that everyone interested in the band really was wondering about that.

The San Francisco-born six-piece’s 1983 collection Sports had been an absolute smash, one of just five records to top the Billboard album chart in 1984 (for just one week in its case, but in that Thriller– and Purple Rain-dominated year still quite something). It yielded four top 10 singles and catapulted the band into the rarefied space of touring attractions capable of filling arenas around the world. The album stayed on the chart for 160 weeks, and the accompanying Sports support tour was about as long: After remaining a road presence consistently for a couple of years, working the same material, though there were memorable new tracks along the way (primarily 1985’s Back to the Future extract “The Power of Love,” which would become the act’s first chart-topping single), what was up with the new album really was worth considering.

“Stuck With You” started to answer the question as the first release from the group’s August 1986 fourth album, with a homophone title to prove it. Fore! would prove a strong successor to the group’s signature record, delivering more top 10 singles than its predecessor but also exhibiting an ambition to broaden their new-wave-meets-dive-bar sound in ways that made exceptional use of their tools on what some have called the band’s most accomplished album.

For anyone thinking the long gestation period between projects signaled an act unprepared to make a next move, “Stuck With You” quickly disabused that notion. Very much a return to form, it highlighted contributions from all band members while cobbling together genre bits. A modernized doo-wop reimagining, the light ringing and shimmer at its edges provided a plush environment in which Lewis could stretch out his vocals, shepherding a comfortable mood before juicing the refrain. Even if its sentiment did boil down to a relationship that had lost its shine but kept going because someone didn’t want to move out and get a new phone number, it was ineffably breezy pop right down to Sean Hopper’s synthesizer bridge. The track was rewarded with a climb to the top of the singles chart, where it stayed for three weeks in September 1986.

Related: Huey Lewis stopped performing due to severe hearing loss

That song was a good indicator for Sports fans that the new set was more of the same, expressed as a positive: quirky, colorful songs with personality that never resorted to formula. The record’s lead-off was in fact one never intended for Lewis at all: “Jacob’s Ladder” was written by Bruce and John Hornsby and wasn’t working satisfactorily with Bruce Hornsby’s own group, so he gave it to Lewis (though those kinks would later even out enough for it to appear on Hornsby’s 1988 collection Scenes from the Southside). The News version was an exercise of specific strengths, particularly in the presence of Lewis’ vocal atop Mario Cipollina’s mellow bass throb. Where the verses made a more natural storytelling fit for Hornsby’s mannerisms, the chorus mightily rewarded Lewis’ penchant for shouted highlights, with each barked word of the “Step by step” refrain its own effusive punctuation. A billowing churn etched with electric guitar that was as meat-and-potatoes rock as anything in the group’s catalog, it also proved hugely successful as the collection’s third single and peaked at #1 in March 1987.

Fore! was one of the most front-loaded records ever created. On side one of the vinyl release, four of the five songs charted in the top 10, as did the first song on the flip side. The exception on the A-side was “Whole Lotta Lovin’,” and even that got enough play to reach #38 on the rock chart. A ridiculous declaration of intent to a girl Lewis was missing on the road (“Woke up this morning/Under a tent” is the sentiment of a guy who does his pining with real wood), its lively throwback rock chug was nonetheless a hoot, with co-author Johnny Colla’s rhythm guitar pushing its percolation as Lewis worked himself up until he exploded with a wailing harmonica bridge. It wasn’t subtle, but charisma counts for a lot.

Some of what fills the second side suffered by comparison: garden-variety philosophizing swirled together with keyboards and guitars made for sonically comfortable environs in “Forest For the Trees,” but the result was akin to sleepwalking, with a just-pleasant vocal performance framing a predictable lyric.

Similar results came from “I Never Walk Alone,” where Lewis stretched his phrasing to hook into its bounding, synth-draped spring, but only forged a one-note reminiscence. Both were easy to digest and well-made, but neither is anyone’s favorite Huey Lewis song.

Also somewhat forgotten, yet markedly more memorable, was “Naturally.” With a regular habit in those days of a cappella interludes at their live performances, including frequent covers of the 1963 Tymes track “So Much in Love,” this Colla-Lewis song took many pages from that book, setting up shop at the crossroads of doo-wop and R&B. Structured to highlight precisely crafted vocal interplay, the rest of the band accented a core Lewis performance long on feeling. He used similar tools for the slow-burn collection closer, “Simple as That.” Nestled among band vocals and horn trimming, its throwback soul underpinnings were a reminder that for all the band’s straightforward appeals, its versatility—and willingness to take it in different directions—was easy to underestimate.

Of course, some people just want to hear the hits, and Fore! had them to spare. That included “I Know What I Like,” which peaked at #9 in May 1987 as the album’s fourth single. Featuring a pronounced reminder of the group’s hometown loyalties in the form of San Francisco 49ers Dwight Clark, Riki Ellison, Ronnie Lott and Joe Montana on backup vocals, the chorus was an exercise in pure insistence. Chris Hayes’ guitar bob gave its edges flavor while Lewis nonchalantly navigated its pulsating churn. Grabby and loaded with vitality, the tune was a strong example of the band’s collective contributions elevating material.

Recruitment of the Tower of Power horns paid dividends on multiple tracks, foremost among them “Doing it All for My Baby,” in which the five-piece section opened the number with a flourish and augmented its throwback R&B vibe’s roomy sway. The song was a true showcase for Lewis; at turns personable and punchy, he sold the heck out of the whole package, from the finesse of its front end to the gusto with which he brought it to a close. Never possessed of dazzling range, his singing nonetheless sported enormous craft, and the sheer emotive power he generated was irresistibly insistent. The tune itself was pure pop comfort food, all sunny energy and ebullience; the last of five singles released in the U.S. to support the record, it peaked at #6 in September 1987.

Retrospective consideration of the album has frequently centered around the other of its chart successes. Its second single, “Hip to be Square,” climbed as high as #3 on the singles chart in December 1986, and with good reason. Amid its long-sustain synth lines, peppery horns and propulsive chug, the tune is a lightning bolt of zeal amid a robust, racing production that hopped around atop Bill Gibson’s drums, yet left space for Lewis’ unique and deceptively skillful everyman’s soul as its edge. Lewis has since maintained he wrote the lyric as a joke, but satire is difficult to digest at this pace. Smart, infectious and a little bit skewed, it worked because of who was delivering it, from the soaring gravity unique to its singer to the assortment of details that fleshed it out behind him, and it all added up to a tremendous party track.

Although it couldn’t match the sales of its seven-times-platinum predecessor, Fore! has sold more than three million copies since its release, and was the group’s second consecutive album to top the Billboard chart, a feat the band hasn’t accomplished since. As for the News itself, its lineup experienced changes over the years, but four of the six founders remained part of the band for its entire history. By the time it ceased performing when Lewis announced in 2018 he suffers from hearing loss as a result of Ménière’s disease, the group had been a steady road presence for more than three decades, always leaning on one of the 1980s’ deepest pop legacies and outlasting nearly all of their contemporaries along the way.

The band’s recordings are available in the U.S. here and in the U.K. here.

Watch the band perform “Stuck on You” live in 1987