The 1980 Listening Post - The Knack - ...But the Little Girls Understand

The Knack - ...But the Little Girls Understand

#50

Reviewed by Eli Sitt

February 15 1980

The Knack

…But the Little Girls Understand

Allen’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Eli’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Allen’s Highlights:

Baby Talks Dirty

I Want Ya

Hold On Tight and Don’t Let Go

Requisite cover:  The Kinks’ “The Hard Way” – not bad, I guess?

By Eli Sitt

The first and only album I ever reviewed was U2’s Joshua Tree. I wrote the review after a listen or two to the record and stashed it away, never read it to anyone. It’s somewhere in an old notebook. If this quarantine lasts another couple of months, I promise, I’ll dig it up and share it. 

This is the second album I’ve ever reviewed, and boy is it a stinker. I have a few metrics for albums: Would I have bought it at the time it was released and liked it?

Would I like it today 42 years after its release? 

And lastly: If I were stranded on a desert island and had only one album to listen to for a few months, would this record push me to kill myself or give me a reason to live?

 I was 14 when The Knack burst onto the pop world in 1979. “My Sharona” was on the radio in Boston constantly. My neighbors were Observant/Orthodox Jews, the kids’ names were Eeyore, Panella and…Sharona. The tune and The Knack will always have a special place in my heart. They were the first Pop/Rock/New Wave band to push Disco out of my life. I will never forget that my classmate told me “Eli, Disco is dead.” The Knack opened the door for all the new wave groups I would follow for the next ten-twenty years. I think Gary Numan’s “Cars” was the second tune.

This album “…But the Little Girls Understand” was the follow up to the smash success “Get the Knack” which I owned and listened to a lot. Not sure what was on my radar when this album came out, I do know that I didn’t buy it. I do not recognize or remember any of these tunes. I am listening to if for the first time. It’s not good. It sounds like someone went into a lab and grabbed ingredients off the shelf, mixed them up and poured them onto the vinyl acetate. I’m not going to analyze the lyrics, I don’t want to remember any of them, keep my mind less spoiled. 

Highlights

Meh

I guess if you listen to the record a few times through, some of the tunes have catchy choruses and song structures that could grow on you, but I’d rather avoid that if possible.

Opening track “Baby Talks Dirty” is obviously a cover of “My Sharona” gone bad.

“I Want Ya” rips off three or four tunes at once, give them credit, it’s a mash up of so many 70’s power pop rock songs. 

Discovery:

“The Feeling I Get” knocks off “And He Kissed me” by the Crystals. I can’t believe they weren’t sued for this…

I’ll score it a 2/5

1 for having decent tunes that could grow on me if I were stuck on that island. They rip off so many different bands and songs that I would at least get third- or fourth-hand enjoyment hearing them.

1 for having the balls to go into the studio after the smash success of their debut album

-3 because, if I remember correctly, they were hyped as the next Beatles. I would not have liked it when it was released, and I will never spend another minute listening to this. I will delete it from my Spotify listening history.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5DexUThrdVLHBdGhFgkl4H?si=BvEH4yzfQq2IxNMUlbDrWQ

The 1980 Listening Post - Toyah - Sheep Farming in Barnet

Toyah - Sheep Farming in Barnet

#49 LISTENING POST ADMIN DISCOVERY

February 22 1980

Toyah

Sheep Farming in Barnet

Genre: Post-Rock

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Neon Womb

Elusive Stranger

The Last Goodbye

Kate Bush + Laurie Anderson + Yoko Ono. 

But, without the ethereal wistfullness of Kate or the determined performance art of Laurie or the atonal unlistenable aspect of Yoko. There’s some Nina Hagen in there as well. 

Toyah seems to come from the no wave bowels of London or New York’s punk clubs. This is a sound that will almost completely disappear in short order, the very few allowed to play around like this being named Bjork. I don’t know if we credit the women of the early 80s enough. They were on the edge of experimentation and creativity. It feels like every decade there’s a burst of female musical energy and the world talks about it with surprise as though they have finally found their collective voices and then finds a way to tamp them down only to be shocked in 5 years when women do it again. 

Toyah is less all the people I mentioned up top and more the female David Bowie. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/sheep-farming-in-barnet/539676948

The 1980 Listening Post - Wreckless Eric - Big Smash!

Wreckless Eric - Big Smash!

#48

February 29 1980

Wreckless Eric

Big Smash!

Genre: Pub Rock

3.75 out of 5 (4.5 if it was just one LP)

Highlights:

Tonight (Is My Night)

It’ll Soon Be the Weekend

I’d Go The Whole Wide World

Whew, Eric, that’s a LOT of music to not be readily available in 2020. Thanks to Sheffield for cobbling together this playlist.

When we think of the great english pub rockers of the era, Nick Lowe, Dave Edmunds, Elvis, Joe, Paul, how come Eric doesn’t get as much love? Did he just not write any hits? That must be it. If he had that one or two massive singles or a cover ala Edmunds that sent him soaring up the charts I bet we would talk about him in that same breath. Despite his near-repugnantly gravelly voice. But that’s what makes RnR great. You don’t HAVE to be a great singer. I thought Sex Pistols proved that.

“Broken Doll” could be the sequel to The Nerves' “Paper Doll”. A neat little Power Pop bit that should be part of a Double A side rerelease. “Excuse Me” sounds like he’s trying to be Ray Davies. And it’s a good thing since Ray doesn’t seem to wanna be Ray anymore at this time.

I’m not sure the world needed a double record by Eric. Surely culling this down to a tight single LP would result in a higher rating.

But, check this. “Walking on the Surface of the Moon”…Eric sounds JUST like Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus, who should totally cover it.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_QjlbjrEOE&list=PLlvn8uktX5Lsb-n3WZYsf-xq2BZ9TgtxI

The 1980 Listening Post - Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

#47

Reviewed by Bobby Bognar

February 15 1980

Warren Zevon

Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School

Genre: Lazy

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Bobby’s Rating: 1.25 out of 5

Allen’s Highlight:

A Certain Girl

I’m supposed to love Warren Zevon.  I don’t know if YOU are supposed to love Warren Zevon, but if you are a songwriter or musician, there’s a pantheon of artists I don’t care for, to whom you are obligated to pay homage: Lou Reed, Frank Zappa, Patti Smith, and, for better or for worse, Warren Zevon.

Firing up BLSIDS, I was concerned.  Would I like it, as I am supposed to? Would I hate it? Would it bore me? Would I lose my songwriter’s club ID card and membership for not waxing poetic about Mr. Zevon’s genius?

The album leads off with the title track, and from the first verse, this is a goddamned Warren Zevon song. There’s just no “not recognizing” his vocal style. It is repetitive lyrically, and redundant musically, and just simply not my style.  The more Warren says “I swear to god I’ll change,” the less I believe him.

As track one began to fade, I looked at the time stamp, expecting it to be in the     range of five minutes and 30 seconds long, which is unforgiveable.  But nope, the song comes in at exactly three minutes, which is both interesting to me (in that it confirms Einstein’s theory of relativity) and a warning sign to me that while this Listening Post exercise may only take an hour or two, it will absolutely feel like much longer.

“A Certain Girl” is track 2, and is definitely a throwback to 60’s-style garage rock. Simple and straightforward, with a catchy chorus, (“What’s her name? I can’t tell ‘ya”), but by the sixth or seventh time W.Z. sings it, I’m WAY done with it. Three minutes and 8 seconds of song that could have been cut to two minutes flat. This strikes me as the first draft of a decent tune that the band decided to jam on for a couple of hours before recording it, but then decided to never work on it again.

Whew! Have I only been listening to this album for 6 minutes? Or have I lost a day or two?

“Jungle Work” is a description of wartime (“We parachute in, we parachute out” made me wonder exactly how one “parachutes out.”), suggesting that the heroes of the song “send death to the huts.” While listening, I realize that that my songwriter’s ID card is in serious jeopardy. I’m going to need to hear some clearer, shorter, less repetitive songs to redeem this album…stat.

At exactly that moment, “Empty Handed Heart” opens with a thoughtful piano intro. It is pleasant to listen to, but I’m wondering if I’m working too hard to find something I like on this album. This sounds like a song from a mega-church service. Change the lyrics from “Made love in the morning while the church bells rang,” to “Praised Him up in heaven to make church bells ring,” and this could be the big closer for Benny Hinn’s 11am Sunday revival.

At under thirty seconds, classical instrumental “Interlude #1” is a welcome break, but holds as much weight as the interstitial skits on Kanye’s albums, although with Yeezy, at least you know something interesting is coming next, right?

Not so with Zevon, whose next track starts with the poetic stanza, “Grandpa pissed his pants again, he don’t give a damn.” Well, goddammit, I’m starting to not give a damn, either. This song references Vietnam, incest, rednecks, alcoholism, death, and, well, pissing in pants. It took me a while to realize that “Play It All Night Long” is a condescending look at fans of “Freebird.” I’m just not a fan of punching down, and this song won’t stop doing that.

“Jeannie Needs a Shooter,” co-written by Bruce Springsteen, is painfully middle-of-the road, but it was the first time I thought to myself, “Hmm…I wouldn’t turn this one off quite as quickly as I would the previous songs.”  That said, I never need to hear it again. 

“Interlude #2” doubles the fun of the earlier instrumental, literally, by coming in at over a minute. This one sounds even more unfinished than the first. 

Track 9 is “Bill Lee,” and, shockingly, this spare piano ballad (with unnecessary -and sloppy! –harmonica playing) is interesting enough in its first minute that I listen to it a second time. Twice is enough, though…forever. This song is only 90 seconds long, but it, too, is far too long.

Have you ever wondered what lazy songwriting sounds like?  Not terrible songwriting. Not offensive songwriting. I can tell you that “Gorilla, You’re a Desperado” fits that bill for me. There’s exactly one lyric that had the germ of a clever idea, and then Mr. Zevon decided to stop working on it. I’ll let you listen to the song yourself, to see if you can find it.

Noted producer and songwriter T-Bone Burnett gets a co-writer credit on “Bed of Coals,” and I am so grateful that he decided to class up this album with some proper lyrics, melody, and arrangement. At over five minutes, this is the longest song on the album, but, paradoxically, is the only song worth listening to. Minus the Meatloaf-style female backing vocals (credited to Linda Ronstadt, who deserves better vocal arrangements), the production on this tune holds up the best of any on the album. I may actually come back to “Bed of Coals” and cover it myself.

There’s nothing wild about the closer, “Wild Age,” although the production of this tune definitely will be comfort food to those who only know W.Z. for “Lawyers, Guns, and Money,” or “Excitable Boy.” The final song sounds like the worst of Jackson Brown, but maybe the best of the artist.

So take away my credentials, songwriter police.  I know it’s MY fault, not his, but I just can’t place a laurel wreath on the head of Warren Zevon.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3sWJWHRCi07Hbk35H046ST?si=7t9oif2cQnCDSZhd-e7oUA

The 1980 Listening Post - Rachel Sweet - Protect the Innocent

Rachel Sweet - Protect the Innocent

#46

February 16 1980

Rachel Sweet

Protect the Innocent

Genre: Power Pop

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Tonight

Jealous

Fool’s Gold

Take Good Care of Me

Requisite 80s cover:

“New Age” by Velvet Underground. Well…the album is a bunch of songs written by others so it’s difficult to really target them. This is fine. Honest. Since I don’t really love VU, I like it a lot.

“Baby Let’s Play House” by Elvis Presley. Rachel’s just having fun mocking the King. 

“New Rose”. A great song. Should’ve been a hit for her. It’s an unbreakable song. She certainly doesn’t hurt it. 

This record starts off with a palm muted glam rock piece of power pop confection written by Sweet, “Tonight”. It’s right in that Knack wheelhouse and I’m surprised I’d never heard it. China and Chapman could’ve pumped this one out, easy. 

In the late 70s Stiff records was pimping out Rachel pretty hard. Like she was the next Pat Benatar and, you know what? She should’ve been. She’s pretty great, but doesn’t have the heft. She’s more Leather Tuscadero than Suzi Quatro but do YOU know what happened to her? 

Well…from Wikipedia: She worked as a writer and executive producer on the television series Dharma & Greg, Commando Nanny, George Lopez, Hot in Cleveland, 2 Broke Girls and The Goldbergs and has worked in television production since the late 1990s. 

So I’m not worried about her. 

This record is a perfect little version of accessible 1980 New Wave Power Pop. I didn’t want it to end. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bC2BYXo2kgA&list=PLlvn8uktX5Ls0uLki1Rt94eMzcY-AGPeU

The 1980 Listening Post - Kevin Ayers - That's What You Get Babe

Kevin Ayers - That's What You Get Babe

#45

February 15 1980

Kevin Ayers

That’s What You Get Babe

Genre: Ego

1.5 out of 5

I have read things about Kevin Ayers like he and Sid Barrett are the two most responsible for modern rock, post-Elvis, I guess.

But I have never seen any evidence of this. Mainly because my experience with Kevin comes from his 80s output.

In the case of those albums, he seems to just be a crappy songwriter who puts a lot of instrumentation around bad ideas and wraps them up and presents them as “songs”. Most of the time, to me, he sounds like a 3rd rate baritone Nillsson. 

Harry had a sense of humor. Kevin seems to have had that extracted. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YGVNV_2Hww&list=PLDFA3F7020684B404

The 1980 Listening Post - The Ramones - End of the Century

The Ramones - End of the Century

#44

Reviewed by Chris Jackson

February 4 1980

The Ramones

End of the Century

Genre: Formerly punk? Garage rock?

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Chris’s Rating: 2.25 out of 5

Allen’s Highlights:

Do You Remember Rock and Roll High Radio?

Rock and Roll High School

Chris’s Highlights:

“Baby, I Love You”

“Rock ‘n’ Roll High School”

I have a confession to make that I am sure will be met with much teeth-gnashing and shocked pearl-clutching by many of my musical friends: I’m not much of a Ramones fan. To my ears, they’re one-trick ponies and if you weren’t overly impressed with that one trick in the first place, well…

But let’s approach this with an open mind: perhaps this attempt by producer Phil “Hair Bear” Spector to push them into more refined territory production-wise and a poppier direction might win me over? No, as it turns out, not so much.

If you removed the phrases “LET’S GO!” and “Whoah-oh-oh!” from every Ramones song, you’d be left with mostly silence. They sprinkle them throughout this release, as well, but it fails to generate excitement. In fact, over half of the record drags and lacks any real energy save for a handful of tracks on the second side. 

The singles from this were “Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?” and “Baby, I Love You”. The first of which seems like the band was being forced to do something they didn’t want to do, which, by many accounts, is an accurate description of the creation of this album. I’m not the biggest fan of what they normally do, but this just doesn’t sound like what they normally do or what they even want to be doing. “Baby, I Love You” is the best track on the album and it’s the only one they didn’t write, which I guess is a bit telling. When covering a Ronettes song, they might have felt the freedom to have a bit more fun with it since they didn’t “own” it like they did all of the others that they wrote. 

The other well-known track from the record is “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School,” which is also a standout. It’s near the end of the album, but it’s catchy, surfy and has some “oomph” to it. The song is rather derivative and nothing we haven’t heard done better by others, but at least they sound like they’re somewhat enjoying themselves.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0QMXeMF3OAF41q35GJvKiR?si=3rseXIgzTiWWRP1mx4DKAQ

The 1980 Listening Post - Mike Rutherford - Smallcreep's Day

Mike Rutherford - Smallcreep's Day

#43

February 15 1980

Mike Rutherford

Smallcreep’s Day

Genre: Prog Rock

2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Out in the Daylight (I think…it’s about 18 minutes into Side One’s suite)

I don’t remember Genesis sounding like a cross between The Who, Yes and Pink Floyd, but, in retrospect, maybe that’s exactly the Venn Diagram where they lived.

With the band on hiatus and nothing to do, I guess 1000 piece puzzles weren’t interesting enough to Mike so he took an obscure surreal book about an assembly line factory worker and wrote half an album about it. And, look, factory work was a nigh on obsession with some of our best 70s British rockers. Their fathers and uncles and peers no doubt toiled in those buildings for life and that took its toll.

This is an interesting prog experiment that is benign enough but, as I have said in other reviews, concept albums, story albums, are just just difficult for me to follow. I’ve often found that the the form doesn’t really work for me, I can’t follow a story told in elliptical rhymes and metaphoric instrumental passages. It took me forever to really understand the story of The Wall, until it was depicted for me, and Tommy…well, I was just confused.

Look, I know that’s a failing of mine but, at least the aforementioned had hummable, catchy tunes that propelled the albums beyond their narratives.

That doesn’t happen here. Thing is, when Side Two abandons the story (I guess it’s completed by the Suite), the collections of songs are just boring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OieZn8Ko5uY

The 1980 Listening Post - Graham Nash - Earth & Sky

Graham Nash - Earth & Sky

#42

February 15 1980

Graham Nash

Earth & Sky

3 out of 5

Highlights:

TV Guide

Graham Nash isn’t Graham Parker, is he? I got them confused when I was a kid. I’d never met anyone named Graham and my mother would let us have the crackers.

You ever walk down the street in a summer tourist town browse into the windows of the various souvenir shops (or should I say, shoppes?) eventually coming upon a local tavern? The walls are bedecked with license plates. You never give any thought to how they got license plates from so many different states? Who hands over their license plate for a drink?

Instead, you shamble in and order a beer from someone wearing a t-shirt with the establishment’s logo (maybe you’ll pick one of those up on your way out) and make your way to a little stage where a sweet, unassuming dude in a Hawaiian shirt, strums his guitar, the strings unshorn so they stick out of the head like a spider web, his buddy, Trey is on the bongos and every song is gentle and swathed in a cloud of pot.

You leave the place after a couple tracks. 

You don’t buy the shirt. 

It’s 1980 so there’s no mercy to buy.

You forget about him as you walk out the door. 

That’s this record. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fyl4tei9W7M

The 1980 Listening Post - 707 -707

707 -707

#40 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

February 11 1980

707

707

Genre: Power Glam

4.5 out of 5 (extra .5 point for never disappointing or being too cloying. 

Highlights:

I Could Be Good For You

Let Me Live My Life

You Who Needs to Know

There’s this weird place where Power Pop and Rock coexist. It’s the land of REO Speedwagon and Toto and,Bon Jovi and well, let’s be honest, Supertramp. Yeah, yeah, I know they are “prog” but they wrote really catchy pop songs that you would hear on classic rock stations. 

That’s 707. The guitars squeal but never screech, the piano melodies everything up and, you know what? It’s not bad. Quite the opposite, really.

I’ll forgive the ballads in ways that I wouldn’t for hair metal because these guys are just bringing their 70s sensibilities into the studio and they mean it. 

Fuck it, Imma going with my gut. For no good reason whatsoever, maybe it’s the combination homemade chocolate chip cookies, Sodastream Dr. Pete with Spiced Rum and the CBD oil but…I swear that these guys are The Hudson Brothers with more heft. Listen to “You Know Who Needs to Know” and tell me if I’m nuts. 

Or drunk.

Or oversugared. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/707/420888779

The 1980 Listening Post - Lydia Lunch - Queen of Siam

Lydia Lunch - Queen of Siam

#39

February 9 1980

Lydia Lunch

Queen of Siam

Genre: No Wave with Jazz!

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Gloomy Sunday

Atomic Bongos

Knives in the Drain

Requisite 80s Cover:

“Spooky”. I get why she included this but, she didn’t need to. It sticks out as an attempt to craft a single while the rest of the record is like a female Tom Waits. It should be as haunting, but it isn’t.

When I was reviewing music for Home Theater Technology I was living on a desert farm in Lancaster, California. The biggest claim to fame, I believe, is that Lancaster was the runner up city for Breaking Bad. Yes. Because Lancaster is the Meth capital of Cali. 

That’s not why we moved there. We moved there because my wife at the time wanted to be a horse trainer. The trouble with wanting to be a horse when your only experience is that you took dressage classes when you were a teenager is that your ability is limited by your experience. 

In her case it was also limited by her intelligence. 

Deciding to be a horse trainer/pig breeder with zero experience except hanging around the Belmont race track with your boyfriend is the height of Dunning-Kruger. 

The dead horse on the dirt driveway on a Sunday morning should have been the giveaway. 

I had converted a small pantry into an office. It had a window to the depressing expanse of desert that ended at the mountains of Kern County.

I was able to fit a desk, a filing cabinet and my computer in there. It was my escape. 

One batch of records I received included Geek the Girl by Lisa Germano. 

I chose to listen to this on a cold desert night. Headphones on. Alone. 

“…a Psychopath” brought me to lonely lonely tears. Empathetic tears. And fear. 

I returned to that record many times over the years.

I thought Lisa was a near original.

I should have gone back to Lydia Lunch. This record is everything Lisa was trying to do, but without violin. 

Had I just heard “Gloomy Sunday”, I’d have known.

I don’t know if Lydia wants to be a chanteuse, lounge singer or denizen of the rat infested Bowery but she succeeds in being all three. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8BzQGuUIjYs

The 1980 Listening Post - Iggy Pop - Soldier

Iggy Pop - Soldier

#38

Reviewed by Scott Von Doviak

February 1 1980

Iggy Pop

Soldier

Genre: Punk/New Wave/Novelty Pop

Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Scott’s Highlights:

Knockin ‘Em Down (In the City)

Take Care of Me

Soldier isn’t one of the Iggy albums you hear a lot about, with good reason. He seems to be flailing around for a new sound here and the results are mixed at best. That might be fine if the songs were better, but for the most part that’s not the case. A lot of them are almost novelty tunes, starting with “Loco Mosquito,” an attempt at new wave that’s at least catchy-dumb. “Ambition” doesn’t have much, but “Knockin’ ‘Em Down (In the City)” could be mistaken for Jane’s Addiction a few years early.  “Play It Safe” is unfortunately titled and features Bowie and Simple Minds singing backup, but never really gets going. That’s true of a lot of the material here—one or two simple ideas and then onto the next. An Iggy song called “Mr. Dynamite” should be a hellraiser, but it’s just kind of a slog. “Dog Food” is another stupid-catchy number, short enough to avoid becoming too annoying.  “Take Care of Me” sounds like the bid for a mainstream hit, anthemic and fully realized. “I’m a Conservative” needs wittier lyrics. “I Snub You” is snotty pop-punk. “Drop a Hook” wraps the whole thing up with a surfy instrumental. It feels like a shrug, as does the whole album.

https://open.spotify.com/album/1mz7w42DNJMwuGbdPILPFV?si=wTKwDDYCRbmA4jaJyLjzYQ