Life As We Know It

There was a certain irony in its title. Life As We Know It marked the end of an era for REO, the band’s last album with Richrath and Gratzer, and the last to make the US Top 40.

In one sense this was business as usual. The album’s two best tracks, both Top 20 hits, proved that Cronin, as a writer and singer, was still operating at a high level: That Ain’t Love a quintessentially 80s AOR anthem, In My Dreams a perfectly crafted ballad. But the discord within the group was revealed in One Too Many Girlfriends, in which Cronin aimed thinly veiled insults at Richrath. It was many years before they were reconciled.