David Kerschenbaum's involvement on the first album had been minimal, but Bryan shrewdly invited his full participation on the second album ... a strategy that virtually guaranteed Bryan's career would move up a notch.

Bob Clearmountain's career was also on a rocket-like trajectory, having recently engineered brilliant recordings for The Rolling Stones ("Start Me Up") and Roxy Music ("More Than This").

Projects with Bruce Springsteen and David Bowie would soon folllow.

"You Want It You Got It" was recorded at the Power Station in New York, Bob Clearmountain's "home base".. Additional recording was done at Le Studio in Morin Heights, Quebec. 

Bob was acquainted with the very best New York musicians-for-hire, including Mickey Curry. Mickey was Hall & Oates' full-time drummer, but he was available for session work. He's a superb musician and a great guy.  He recorded and toured with Bryan for more than twenty years and was a significant part of the "Adams sound".

In addition to Bryan himself, guitarists on "You Want It You Got It" included Jamie Glaser and G.E. Smith. Smith is best known for his ten-year stint in the Saturday Night Live "house band". He's also recorded and toured with Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Hall and Oates, and many others.

For me, the stand-out tracks on the album are Lonely Nights, Comin' Home, Fits Ya Good and Tonight.  Some of the other songs are less than stellar -- (Adams and I were still honing our writing skills) -- however Bob Clearmountain managed to make even the "average" songs sound good!

If "You Want It You Got It" didn't put Adams on the map, it certainly opened doors and got him noticed as a "real contender".

Despite a slight new wave flavor on its title track, the debut record by Canadian singer-songwriter Bryan Adams is a solid, well-played slab of straight-ahead, four-on-the-floor rock & roll. On tracks like catchy opener, "Lonely Nights," Adams shows how he can take a pretty basic riff and get the most out of it through his heartfelt, emotional delivery. Thematically, Adams alternates between the spurned lover, the wooing lover, and the fed-up lover who's not gonna take it any more; but the emphasis here is on the simple pleasures of rock played and sung with workmanlike dedication. Following a pattern he would continue throughout his rise to the top of the charts, Adams alternates between punchy rock in the spirit of same-era Bruce Springsteen ("Jealousy") and what were soon dubbed "power ballads," such as "Coming Home" and the touching closer, "No One Makes it Right."Co-produced by Bob Clearmountain, who would be one of the hottest producers in the business by the middle of the decade, YOU WANT IT has the pleasing oomph of American power rock and a radio-ready sheen.