| Wanna Be a Star | |
| Type: | Studio album |
| Artist: | Chilliwack |
| Cover: | ChillWanna_Be_A_Star.jpg |
| Released: | September 1981 |
| Recorded: | Waterstreet Sound, Vancouver |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Length: | 39:12 |
| Label: | Solid Gold Records (CAN) Millennium Records (USA) |
| Producer: | Bill Henderson and Brian MacLeod |
| Prev Title: | Breakdown in Paradise |
| Prev Year: | 1979 |
| Next Title: | Opus X |
| Next Year: | 1982 |
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.[1]
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.