Wanna Be a Star
Wanna Be a Star is the ninth album by the Canadian rock band Chilliwack, released in September 1981. At this point, the band had collapsed into a trio, without a full-time drummer, but leader Bill Henderson and guitarist/keyboardist/drummer Brian MacLeod had become a powerful songwriting team during the interim. The single release "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" became the group's first hit since the 1979 collapse of their former label Mushroom Records, reaching #1 in Canada and giving Chilliwack their U.S. Top 40 breakthrough peaking at #22 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 : "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" also gave Chilliwack their only evident chart item outside North America reaching #57 in Australia with a disproportionately long chart run of 28 weeks. The success of "My Girl (Gone, Gone, Gone)" led to a touring version of Chilliwack re-forming. The album's second single: "I Believe", released in early 1982, was also a Top 10 Canadian hit and returned Chilliwack to the U.S. Top 40 at #33. In November 1982, "Wanna Be a Star" was certified Platinum (in excess of 100,000 copies sold) in Canada. Overall the album is something of a concept  album about the "rock and roll" lifestyle and the pursuit of fame. The leadoff track "Sign Here" is a reference to Chilliwack's new quest for mainstream success, tempered by their brush with fame on Mushroom. This was the first album they recorded with Solid Gold Records in Canada, a new Toronto-based label.