Gowan's 'Criminal Mind' Now Certified Platinum

By FYI Staff

Scottish-born Canadian rocker Larry Gowan received a pleasant surprise at his Caesar’s Colosseum concert in Windsor, ON, last Friday. Reps from his label, Linus Entertainment, showed up side-stage to present him with a certified Canadian Platinum Single award for a combined 80,000 physical, digital and stream equivalent units of his song “A Criminal Mind," released back in 1985. Gowan was genuinely surprised and delighted at the presentation. “It’s amazing to me because I didn’t think anyone bought records anymore!” he said upon returning for an encore. Gowan still performs shows with his own band, but his main gig these days is as the lead singer of Styx.

Over the years, the two-time Juno winner’s slim catalogue of album releases for what was then CBS Records has sold over 600,000 copies in Canada.

His 1985 album Strange Animal was his commercial breakthrough in Canada, produced by British producer David Tickle and backed by Peter Gabriel's rhythm section players Tony Levin and Jerry Marotta. The album spawned the hit singles "A Criminal Mind", "(You're a) Strange Animal," "Guerilla Soldier" and "Cosmetics."

Several years back, Gowan acquired the masters to his CBS (now Sony Music Entertainment) catalogue and assigned them to Linus Entertainment, which now represents the following: Strange Animal, Great Dirty World (which includes the song "Moonlight Desires"), and The Good Catches Up. These titles now appear in the True North Records catalogue, which Linus acquired in 2007.