#54
February 1980
The Blasters
American Music
3.75 out of 5
Highlights:
American Music
Marie Marie
In 1981 (I believe), I was reading Time Magazine. This was not a regular occurrence, I assure you. I am nowhere near as erudite as I wish I was. There was a kid on the bus to school when I was 10 who would brag that he red, for fun, the dictionary, to learn new words. I can not express how happy I was to learn that he failed out of college with a sever addiction problem. I’ve probably lost a few months of my life for just writing that sentence. Hate and bile are more corrosive than bacon fat but a helluva lot of fun to write.
In that issue of Time they listed the “best albums of the year”. The 1-2 punch was X’s Wild Gift and The Blasters self titled. It took me a while to realize that both albums were distributed by….Warner entertainment. Which also owned Time.
I eschewed The Blasters. I loved the name. Hated the cover.
X, on the other hand? Just that one letter screamed punk to me. Edge. Anger. The music of adolescence.
Over the years I eventually came to listen and appreciate the Blasters. Especially when one of the Alvin Brothers co-wrote X’s biggest hit, “4th of July”.
But I wasn’t wrong.
X was new punk. A razor blade of poetry and magically stripped down rock.
The Blasters, on the other hand, were straight up rock and roll revival, out of the a Saturday Night hoedown. Their version of it was precise and spot on. And, for a 50s revival, the timing was also perfect. So, why didn’t they break through the way Stray Cats did?
I can’t really say. Except that Setzer added sex to the music, which was all about sex to begin with and The Blasters seemed to be your Uncle’s best friend. The guy who elbows your uncle hard in the ribs every time Uncle Stanley makes some unctuous and snide comment about your daughter, his niece.
And Uncle Best Friend doesn’t take that opportunity to bang your daughter. Nope. He teaches her how to play guitar instead.
Which is fine. It’s great, even.
But it doesn’t sell records for Uncle Best Friend’s band.
However, the daughter grows up to be a 90s Riot Grrl rocker and that’s fucking great. Points for that!
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