It Starts Over Again b/w Anything That Can Go Wrong

Seven Minutes were a seven-piece Toronto pop band who released three records on A&M Records of Canada in 1984: the five-song 12" mini-album Two Torn Apart and two 7" singles drawn from it. Robbie Cooper sang lead, Lorne Cooper and Sam Pizzii played guitars, Jeff Mogil played keyboards, Corey Lovett played bass and Bruce Soer played drums. Paul Koffman played saxophones and flute, putting horn lines at the front of a pop band at a time when most of Toronto was reaching for synthesizers.

The record was made with producers Fraser W. Hill and Rick Hutt at Metalworks Studios in Mississauga, where it was also mixed, with additional recording at The Waxworks in Kitchener. Hill engineered with Hugh Cooper assisting, the band and Hutt arranged the songs together, Howard Cooper served as executive producer, and Peter Norman mastered the tapes at McClear Place. Bernie Greenspoon sat in on keyboards for the title track.

The writing was spread through the band. Mogil and Koffman wrote ‘It Starts Over Again’ and ‘Anything That Can Go Wrong’, Pizzii wrote ‘Baby, Don’t Let Me Down’, and the two Coopers wrote ‘I Owe You Nothing’. The title song came out of the studio, credited to Robbie and Lorne Cooper with producers Hill and Hutt. All five songs carried the full MAPL logo as 100 per cent Canadian content.

In its March 17, 1984 issue, RPM named Two Torn Apart among the week’s strongest Canadian-content releases, alongside Lee Aaron’s Metal Queen. A&M sent promotional copies to radio with an eight-by-ten glossy photo and a two-page company biography, and pulled two singles from the record. The title track came first, backed with ‘Baby Don’t Let Me Down’ (AM 638), followed by ‘It Starts Over Again’ with ‘Anything That Can Go Wrong’ on the flip (AM 651).

Canadian Musician reviewed the mini-album in July 1984. It described the band as young Toronto musicians from diverse backgrounds whose pop bore some resemblance to Squeeze, and judged that with stronger editing and production the group “could deliver the goods.”

Those five songs were all Seven Minutes ever released. Co-producer Rick Hutt went on to run Cedartree Recording Studio in Kitchener and founded the label spinmusic.

-Robert Williston