#105
May 4 1984
Echo & the Bunnymen
Ocean Rain
5 out of 5
Highlights:
Silver
Nocturnal Me
Crystal Days
The Killing Moon
Seven Seas
When I first heard the name, Echo & the Bunnymen, I was reading an issue of Trouser Press, driving with my mom on Main St in Chatham Boro, NJ, heading home from a trip to the Livingston Mall. I remember it this clearly because I thought, “What an incredibly dumb name for a band. How can you take a band seriously with a name like this?”
And with that I dismissed Echo & the Bunnymen.
Until about 8 years ago when i was laying on my couch, listening to something on Spotify which took me on a habit hole journey into modern psychedelic pop rock and I read about Ocean Rain. Why was this album so lauded? What was this thing.
So, I fired it up.
And I was hooked.
The baroque gothic majesty of these tracks belie the categorization of “dream pop” or Psychedlia or New Wave. Its the intersecting point where The Moody Blues and U2 meet.
It’s sadness and decay and love and pining and lush and gorgeous and ugly and demanding.
As I listened for what must be my 10th time, I just lay back and was determined to find faults to knock down the review rating.
And there are a few times it feels like McCullough is trying too hard (“Yo Yo Man”) but he more than makes up for that pretentia with “The Killing Moon” a most perfect example of the best of the era and deserving of a time capsule for what defines the best of the 80s.
I love Ocean Rain.
I think I might just go listen to it again.
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