#53
February 1985
The Tubes
Love Bomb
Genre: Rock
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
Piece By Piece
Theme from a Wooly Place
One reason I love doing this is going back and rehearing an album that was summarily dismissed when it was released. My roommate, an inveterate Tubes fan, bought this and we both declared it garbage. Although I recall a moment of trying to find the love in it… that was when we learned that Rundgren ordered the songs randomly or something. Maybe that’s a false memory.
Anyhoo.
Completion Backwards? Loved it.
Outside Inside? LOVED it.
So, how’s this?
Well, the opening single could really have used…gulp…David Foster. And I even kind of even like “Stella”. Again, needs Foster and it sounds like Fee laid his vocals down when no one was around. And then couldn’t wait to get out of there.
“Come As You Are” is the lame attempt at a radio ballad hit. What’s missing? David Foster.
I really don’t hate Side One. It’s fine. It’s like they’re trying to recreate Outside Inside and, I think that’s the right move, after all, mailbox money. And the title track…I get what they are trying to do.
But, jeez, Fee’s voice sounds worse here than on his solo record.
Side Two is where it all gets weird. It’s like…the 80s funk rock Tubes Abbey Road. It sounds like it was programmed by an IT guy but one who really understood percussion and bass. (And “Theme from a Wooly Place” is one of the earliest Mashups.
It’s like a 20 minute party track and…I kind of love it. Sorry not sorry. It’s not meant to be heard except as one long track, and even then, you probably don’t need to hear it more than a couple times. But, still. It’s nowhere near the failure we all thought it was.
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