The Listening Post - Elvis Costello - Hey Clockface

 Elvis Costello - Hey Clockface - 2020

I stopped this Costello project with Secret, Profane and Sugarcane. 

Even though National Ransome had a cover that screamed, "Allen, I think you will like this!" and there were accolades for the follow ups, I just never bothered. 

Here we have another entry and, because I am mired in the 80s I've also taken it upon myself to listen to music released by artists from that era but, 40+ years after they first made news. 

So, here we are with Hey Clockface. An album that starts off determined to say it's here to challenge you and all you know about Elvis. Moody, ominous and filled with treachery, the opening track "Revolution #49" is a spoken word piece, we should know...this isn't the My Aim is True Elvis. I'm not even sure it's the Sugarcane Elvis. It's something else entirely. "No Flag" is a pounder that defies pigeonholing. Elvis isn't interested in playing to the radio crowd. That track is only going to get played by the most adventurous of DJs. 

By the time we get near the end, which is signalled by the other spoken word "Radio is Everything", I found myself angrier and angrier. Because the reviews of this thing are such that it should be a masterpiece not a mastur....

I don't cotton to Elvis' more meandering balladeering. I find him unctuous and boring when he does that so, when the record finally picks up on the title track I was severely let down that it's just another in a long like of Costello as Honky Tonker pieces. Like he took that review that called him the "new Cole Porter" so seriously, he decided to write stuff as a peer of Cole's instead of being his own man.

Look, I didn't care for Painted From Memory or North or any of the softer Costello offerings. This one didn't impress any more than those. 

C+

A Side: No Flag

Down Side: Too Many to Mention

Listening Post - Purple Sabbath - Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man

 Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man - 2020

I missed a ton of records in this series. And that's because, well, we all moved on from blogging, no? Aren't we all in our niches on Facebook? I know I am. And I've built a larger swath of readers there. With guest reviewers and everything!

But this record came up in my Apple Music feed and, since I decided to listen to it, I thought it best to put some thoughts here.

This is the first album since Scream and Ozzy is about 130 now and how hard can he rock, really?

Oh, he can, apparently. 

That opening riff is big and beefy and Ozzy wants to "make you scream, make you defecate" and, tbh, I had this playing so loud that I started to believe that he could make me shit my pants. 

Duff McKagan is the bassist on 90% of this, contributing, as all the musicians, as a writer on his songs. And Tom Morello, who blisteringly showed up on the new Struts album, shows up for a couple tracks. As does Post Malone. And Slash! SLASH!!!

It's a cornucopia of BIG stadium metal that calls to mind...Audioslave. 

After that scathing opener it really feels like by-the-numbers metal that's keeping time until we get to the BIG SINGLE! which is a duet with...checks notes...yes, one Elton John.

Wait. What? 

Yes, the title track is a mid-tempo ballad that doesn't just work as an Ozzy single, it also works as an Elton one. In fact, I'd like to hear him do his own version of it. And Slash's solo is so Slash-y, you know? It's freaking SLASH!

I was surprised that "Under the Graveyard" was the lead single but it sort of kicks. That could be the production, though, which is crisp and stellar. 

He's pretty paranoid, still. "Scary Little Green Men" live in his head and he's worried that they might...eat him? Is this 1957? But even the middling tracks, like "Holy for Tonight" make we want to see what they could be like in concert.

The LP ends with the blistering Post Malone team up, "It's a Raid"and it's quite the knock out ending. The bonus track is a Post Malone song featuring Ozzy and Travis Scott and it might be the best song on the record, that isn't on the record. I didn't know how much I needed the Rap-Metal team up of Post, Travis and Ozzy, but I'm here for it. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ordinary-man/1493922560

Grade B+

A Side: Straight to Hell, Ordinary Man, It's a Raid

Blind Side: Under the Graveyard, Eat Me

Down Side:

Bruce Springsteen - Letter to You

Bruce Springsteen

Letter to You

It’s not often I go song by song to review an album but I felt with this one that I had to. 

So, let’s jump in to the latest Bruce Springsteen record. 

“One Minute You’re Here”: It opens hauntingly. Like a ghost of The Rising. Strains of “My City in Ruins” or “The Fuse”… Play this at Bruce’s funeral. But it’s an introduction. A head fake. Because the real opener is:

“Letter to You”: Screams to open his concerts. I guarantee you it will. The Letter to You concert. Simple lead lines, predictable drum fills bring comfort instead of the laziness I’ve felt in the past. You know that when the solo is over he’s going to follow that with “Good evening, Los Angeleez!”. It’s ready made stadium music.

“Burnin’ Train”: I was worried, after those two tracks, that we would get more subdued Bruce. More Devils and Dust than The Rising. Look, Bruce isn’t ever gonna be as innovative as he was in the 70s. He’s not the wordsmith of Asbury Park, the hot blooded kid of “Rosalita”, the pensive evaluator of American lives of The River. Those days are over. He’s 70 something. He wants to ride his horses on the open fields of his estate in New Jersey. That’s this song. It’s a tailgate party at a Dude Ranch. 

“Janey Needs a Shooter”. The loneliness and need of the lead character in this song resonates with those who have lost hope in 2020 and, for me, have turned to just about anyone for that hand. 

“Last Man Standing” is this album’s “Surprise Surprise” by X. Another song about longing for the fun of being in a band. Bruce is more wistful and nostalgic. It’s something extraordinary. He’s the “last man standing standing now”. With two dead E Street members and many other friends gone, Bruce is staring mortality in the face. He’s also the last of the boomers of the era to fill stadiums like he does. The guys from The Castiles are gone, most of his compatriots have shuffled off and he knows the days are numbered. This is the first song to make me sad for the day that a hero of mine will one day no longer be here.

“The Power of Prayer”.  Chords. Words. Bruce knows what to do with these. He can write this in his sleep. For me this is the Mary’s Place of the record. A song I know I’m supposed to sing along with but it’s sort of hollow. A song written around a statement that serves as a chorus and leaves me wanting. 

End Side One.  

Snap thoughts: It’s got a lot of great stuff going for it. Not the least of which is the way the band sounds, having recorded it live. But, also, I can not see myself returning to any of these songs. Maybe the title track. The rest of it I’m glad to know because I will want to sing along in concert.

“House of a Thousand Guitars” is the first song that made me think…did he write this in his studio, looking around at all his guitars? Is this the “Queen of the Supermarket” of this record. Feels like it. 

“Rainmaker” is the Trump song. It’s vicious. But not as much as an indictment of Trump. It is. But it’s more about empathizing with the desperate who follow him and need him. It’s the Bruce we have been looking for during this dark dark time. He did not disappoint. 

“If I Was the Priest” is another Castiles era track. Remember when Bruce was the “next Dylan”? And he employed wordplay that attempted to be just that? And then, poof, he never went back to that “Blinded by the Light” well? This is a track from that time, but spruced up with latter day E-Street glory. And it comes to life. It comes to life so well I kind of wish Bruce would re-record that first album with these grizzled and road traveled players. Thank god it fades out. I miss fade outs. 

I had already dismissed “Ghosts” because of the Tom Petty interpolation of “Free Falling” and, I admit, it’s difficult for me to get over. He’s done it before. “Radio Nowhere” bit on Tommy Tutone and he’s taken a bite out of KISS, ffs. But the elegiac chorus, especially if listening to the album as a whole, actually manages to work. 

“Song for Orphans” See: “If I Was the Priest”. An excellent 6+ minute track that I don’t know that I will ever return to.

“I’ll See You In My Dreams” takes us out. He hits this nail on the head. Like “The Show Must Go On” was the perfect career closer for Freddie Mercury, so is this for Bruce. In that context, he had me weeping at the end. 

Bruce is a smart guy. He’s very aware. He peels the onion of the world, people he sees and, most importantly, himself. So, if he is at all like I expect him to be, he is aware that the end is coming. He’ll reach the age of life expectancy soon. Four hour concerts are going to be more and more challenging. They may be the elixir of his life but it gets harder to lift the chalice as we get older. 

If this is the last Bruce Springsteen album, he has written an excellent eulogy. 

A perfect letter. The “You” isn’t just the listener. It’s the band. The bandmates. And, most importantly, the music. 

This is Bruce’s best collection since The Rising. And, I might add, that that record had it’s flaws. It felt, at times, like Bruce was trying to sound like what he wanted to remember Bruce sounded like. In that context, this is fuller and more realized and cohesive. Which makes it better than The Rising. Which makes it his best since Born in the USA.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/letter-to-you/1529959055

The 1981 Listening Post - The Handsome Beasts - Bestiality

 The Handsome Beasts - Bestiality

#51

1981 Housekeeping

The Handsome Beasts

Bestiality

Genre: Blues Based Metal

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

David’s Song

Breaker

Crazy

This

Is

The

Worst

Cover

I

Have

Ever

Seen

At least NOFX’s Heavy Petting Zoo was illustrated. It, too, was in terrible taste but, I dunno, I didn’t hate it as much as I loath this one. 

But, how’s the music? It’s…blues based metal. It isn’t bad. Everyone plays their parts, their instruments as well as any practitioners of the form did at the time. 

In fact, I kind of love some of it. If you love that early 70s riff heavy Sabbathian sound…well…this is in that ballpark. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/beastiality-bonus-track-version/285394332

The 1981 Listening Post - Emmylou Harris - Evangeline

 Emmylou Harris - Evangeline

#50

By Tami Fitzkoff

January 1981

Emmylou Harris

Evangeline

Genre: Country Harris-ment  

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Tami’s Rating: 2 out of 5  (that’s being nice)

Highlights: 

Evangeline

Mister Sandman

I was excited to listen to Emmylou Harris’s early work considering her song Red Dirt Girl (2003) is one of the most beautiful, raw and harrowing songs I have ever heard—it’s in my top ten of all time. It literally brings me to tears every time I hear it. Seriously, go listen to that song now. I’ll wait. But this album? Oy to the vey! Blech! It’s not even worth discount rack status. This record is clearly a forgettable mishmosh of songs written by other people sung by a young performer yet to find her true voice as a singer and a songwriter.  

It’s clear in 1981 Emmylou is talented, even if the album is crap. Her vocal range is strong and reminds me so much of Linda Ronstadt’s voice from the song A Different Drum. And to my surprise, Linda Ronstadt (in addition to Dolly Parton) is actually on this album singing back-up on two songs Evangeline and Mister Sandman (cover). These two songs are the ONLY songs worth listening to on the album. And the cover of Mister Sandman might even be better than the original. Come to think of it, that’s all Evangeline should have been— these three ladies singing and harmonizing together.* They could sing the phone book as trio and it would be incredible. 

But alas, reading the phonebook is more enticing than another listen to this record. Even with all the star power writers like Robbie Robertson, James Taylor and Rodney Crowell and the great musicians like Waylon Jennings, Ricky Skaggs (who plays an incredible mandolin on the song How High The Moon), and Dr. John, this album is a snooze-fest. The worst song, oddly, is her cover of Bad Moon Rising. It’s like a hootenanny karaoke version — seriously mind-blowingly awful. Sorry Emmylou! Thank goodness you got better with age or, at least, found better producers. 

*Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt actually did do an album together in 1987 called Trio. It was a #1 Billboard Top Country Album and it won a Grammy for Best Country Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.

https://open.spotify.com/album/5dca8ENLImRo9oY42A6clX?si=fgkc48EfRdyOJgoWjf2WFQ

The 1981 Listening Post - Fingerprintz - Beat Noir

 Fingerprintz - Beat Noir

#49

1981 Housekeeping

Fingerprintz

Beat Noir

Genre: Very different from the last one

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

The Beat Escape

Touch Sense

Remember how immensely great Fingerprintz’s 1980 Power Pop/New Wave gem was? This is not that. In fact, the opening track, “The Beat Escape” reminds me more of Queen’s “Fun It” from Jazz. All that’s missing is the gym whistles. 

I really don’t know what the Fingerprintz dudes were thinking. This record hews closer to disco and reggae than what they were about before. But, then again, I tend to look at everything through a lens of commercialism. Since my experience is in advertising I often think about the marketing of stuff and how it would be perceived by the consumers. It’s a failing of mine. Probably why I love doing commercials and find long form theater boring and somewhat exhausting. 

Who wants to be around the same people for 6 weeks of rehearsals, let alone on the stage, saying the same damned thing every night, with them? I mean, those people are…gag…actors. So, that’s how I see things.

But not how I value music. Having been in a band I always looked at it as the most satisfying form of theater. After all, you don’t have to slog through 2 hours before you see how successful you were, in toto. And, unlike stand-up where each and every sentence requires a response to gauge how you are doing, being in a rock band you get 3 minutes and, if they don’t like it…next song, baby!

So, I have to remember these things when I hear a curio like Beat Noir. Because this sounds like they made music for THEM not the anyone to buy, although had I, I bet I would have liked it. If only to have been the only person to own it. 

Or I might have never gotten past song 3. And that would have been fine as the rest of the record sounds like…Duran Duran covering…Talking Heads…covering…B-52s. (Looking at you, “Going Going Gone”)

Weird stuff.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/beat-noir/611122987

The 1981 Listening Post - Marine Girls - Beach Party

 Marine Girls - Beach Party

#48

1981 Housekeeping

Marine Girls

Beach Party

Genre: OG Lo-Fi

2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Marine Girls

There are a handful of artists that push out their DIY thang in the early 80s. Daniel Johnston comes to mind. As does Jandek. And Marine Girls. Sadly, their debut, while possibly giving birth to Twee is also a challenging listen. The guitars are wildly out of tune and that wound’t be so bad if the songs weren’t so cloying and achingly pining. They really pull it together in a couple years but on Beach Party, there’s not so much a party as there is a basement gathering of David Lynch castaways. 

This is going to sound so much better when they get better in a couple years and then you will be just fine with Marine Girls. In fact, add some Cub and All Girl Summer Fun Band…maybe even Donora and you’ve got quite the lo-fi all female playlist. 

I like that they have their own theme song. And it’s the only song I like on the record, tbh. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/lazy-ways-beach-party/204669167

The 1981 Listening Post - Generation X - Kiss Me Deadly

 Generation X - Kiss Me Deadly

#47

By Rob Haneisen

January 23 1981

GenX

Kiss Me Deadly

Genre: New Wave, post-punk rock

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Rob’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Highlights: 

Dancing with myself

Untouchables

Triumph

I recently saw a photo of a weathered but fit-looking Billy Idol posing with a young child in his arms. Smiling for the photo, as any proud grandpa would holding his grandchild. Yes, Billy Idol is a grandfather and we are all officially old.

It’s difficult to see that photo and then imagine the state of mind of a very young Billy Idol in 1980 recording his last real album with the band that started his rock career. Generation X became GenX when the band membership changed up due to, among other issues, drugs. It’s obvious they were not all in full command of their faculties for the duration of this album released in 1981.

There are a few gems on this record. I absolutely love “Dancing with Myself” for its driving bada-bada-bada bassline and smarmy urgency. It’s no wonder Billy Idol rerecorded it on his first solo album. “Untouchables” sounds like it could easily be placed on the soundtrack of any John Hughes 80s teen rom-com and “Triumph” punches up the tempo just enough.  The rest of the album really sounds like a collection of tracks you’d find on a b-sides collection. They sound more like ideas and attempts, rather than songs. And they mostly miss.

The production is also a bit lacking, unless you call adding big echo effects on Idol’s singing production. His voice definitely sounds more delicate and untested than the snarling yowl he perfected on “Rebel Yell.” I guess he still had some growing up to do.

A word about Punk. This is not punk music. GenX may dress the part at times or start down a punky path, as they do on “What do you want”, but it’s just not deserving of that genre. Billy Idol’s solo material was similarly non-punk despite his leather and spiky hair. That’s not to say it’s bad – I really like some of his songs - maybe you could stretch and call it punk-influenced, bratty-sounding rock. I’m cool with that. “Kiss Me Deadly” has a New Wave vibe to it as well but it is surf I’d rather not ride on most days.

https://open.spotify.com/album/67Ee6sSx28m3wFS6EUZGpB?si=duJ6WZ3yRD-HoWtbi9MGyA

The 1981 Listening Post - Balance - Balance

 Balance - Balance

#46

1981 Housekeeping

Balance

Balance

Genre: Post-Glam Stadium AORock

3.25 out of 5

Highlights: 

Breaking Away

Is it Toto? No, but they could have toured with them. This is Bob Kulick’s band.  You know Bob. He just died this year (2020) and he worked with…well…everybody. His brother was an off and on member of Kiss. He worked with W.A.S.P. And Meat Loaf. And Michael Bolton. And Diana Ross. And even Spongebob Squarepants. 

Bob seems like a nice guy that had talent that people liked to work with. But this kind of aim-for-the-heart-of-the-Top-40-Radio-Dial stuff fails more often than it excites. A lot of it sounds like the kind of stuff that Dirk Diggler would be desperate to record. 

It’s a shame cuz the near jingoism of “American Dream” coupled with the strings drag down what could have been a neat little latter day Queen type track. 

https://open.spotify.com/album/1OXXV8BztHg81iCkAFTVsF?si=4Arf7U1HRtmTLrytwpfdtA

The 1981 Listening Post - The Boys - Boys Only

 The Boys - Boys Only

#45

January 31 1981

The Boys

Boys Only

Genre: Power Pop

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Let it Rain

Requisite 80s cover: A truly uninspired version of “Wonderful World”. Like a watered down Ramones. 

Still mining that Knack/Romantics vein, labels are not quite done with this sound. But The Boys are. This is their last album, and the first I’ve heard. Had I not known that I still might feel the same way: This is a band that is running out of steam. Or, well, since I am pretending I don’t know that, I would say that they are a PP band trying really hard to catch that gold ring but just come up a hair short.

There are no bad original tracks here. In fact, “Monotony” sounds a lot like The Vapors. But it wouldn’t make New Clear Days. This is something that ends up on Magnets. And “Gabrielle” is almost highlight worthy. But then it’s followed up by the faux country “Miss You” and I just can’t with any band lamenting John Wayne’s absence. No, guys, I don’t miss John Wayne. I think that’s the sort of hero worship that ruined the 80s. And it almost sounds like you are playing it for laughs, but if you are, I don’t get the joke. 

Maybe the joke’s on me. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/boys-only/539504135

The 1981 Listening Post - Tuxedomoon - Desire

 Tuxedomoon - Desire

#44

January 1981

By Scott Von Doviak

Tuxedomoon

Desire

Genre: No Wave/Avant Garde

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Highlights:

East/Jinx

Incubus (Blue Suit)

I was unfamiliar with Tuxedomoon before this Listening Post assignment, and I’m not sure why. Certainly they wouldn’t have gotten any mainstream radio airplay back in my formative years, but by college in the late ‘80s, when I was seeking out more adventurous stuff, it seems they would have popped up on my radar. Never happened, but if it had I figure I would have given this one listen and decided it was not for me.

Don’t get me wrong, this is adventurous, singular stuff, at times calling to mind the Residents, Tom Waits, and the Doors, but while I enjoy demented carnival music as much as the next guy, Desire gets a bit too dissonant for my liking at times. The opening epic “East/Jinx” weighs in at nearly 15 minutes and runs through several phases: an opening instrumental section that wouldn’t be out of place on the Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, a Gypsy caravan interlude, and finally an electronic freakout that sounds like a malfunctioning modem from the late 90s. I rather enjoyed it up until that last part, but the mix of styles sets the tone for what follows.

“Victims of the Dance” sounds like a later Doors track where the Lizard King spouts his poetry while Ray Manzarek noodles on the keyboards. “Incubus (Blue Suit)” is downright poppy and danceable, in a “Goth night at the club” sort of way. The title track is repetitive, “Again” suggests a drunken Phantom of the Opera, “In the Name of Talent” is noisy skronk I’d really have to be in the mood for, and “Holiday for Plywood” is like a jaunty score from a ‘40s melodrama that slowly descends into hell. Tuxedomoon definitely weren’t following trends and I appreciate the oddball risk-taking, but I don’t see myself listening to Desire very often.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZoSobrMgDcDkICS0G6f95?si=ESEOIW_PTEyw6wwwVIaCPA

The 1981 Listening Post - Art Objects - Bagpipe Music

Art Objects - Bagpipe Music 

#42

1981 Housekeeping

Art Objects

Bagpipe Music

Genre: Post-Rock Semi Ambient Noodle Poetry

3 out of 5

In a few years these guys will reemerge as Blue Aeroplanes and put out a pretty decent record with a song on called “Bagpipe Music”, which is the better track there.

This album is called Bagpipe Music but there are no bagpipes. But it’s nice to see that they were doing the storytelling beat poetry as song when they were this incarnation. Nice, I mean, in that they are consistent. 

These aren’t art objects. They are art students. Who think by appropriating the Batman Theme and equating it to V Vietnam they are being cheeky and funny.

They aren’t.

The have the countenance of people who think they should be seen as important but haven’t built up the currency to be valued as such. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/bagpipe-music/262527255

The 1981 Listening Post - Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be the One

 Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be The One

#41

By Scott Von Doviak

1981 Housekeeping

Robert Gordon

Are You Gonna Be the One

Genre: Rockabilly Revival

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Highlights:

Someday, Someway

Look Who’s Blue

Lover Boy

Do you love a classic rockabilly sound filtered through tinny ‘80s production? No? Me either. Robert Gordon has a voice – it’s a voice you’ve heard before if you’re familiar with Elvis Presley. Gordon pretty much nicked the King’s vocal stylings wholesale. But he’s not the only one, and I can imagine Gordon’s early albums with Link Wray deliver more of an old school rockabilly kick than this slick collection does. You know “Someday, Someway” from Marshall Crenshaw, though Gordon recorded it first and had a regional hit in New York with it. It’s an OK rendition that never really soars, which means it fits right in with the rest of these songs. “Look Who’s Blue” is one of the better Elvis ripoffs, and it’s probably fun to see Gordon do it live. I don’t want to hate on this guy, but a song called “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” needs to be a lot nastier and Cramps-like than what we get here. For my taste, anyway. “Lover Boy” is another decent Elvis soundalike, but again, the production just grates. At least it’s a short album – not even half an hour in its original version. The version on Spotify has a bunch of bonus tracks, but life’s too short.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4D2rpGX0XEXB74ZRWbJY12?si=z6kyLb9oSuyWlBjbzgKKeg

The 1981 Listening Post - Arthur Lee - Arthur Lee

 Arthur Lee - Arthur Lee

#40

1980 Housekeeping

Arthur Lee

Arthur Lee

Genre: The Hip Current Sounds of 1971

2.5 out of 5 

There is a road between late 60s flower pop and Twee and that road, apparently, drives straight through Arthur Lee’s opening track, “One”. 

The whole record sounds like someone got trapped in a time warp in 1971 and then walked right into a studio in 1981, recorded an album and said, “Yeah, baby! This is the shit that all the kids are gonna love!” 

Reading up on Arthur’s life is almost a counterpoint to his life. So much joy punctuated by such tragedy. 

The reggae tinged “One on One” is a sweet little treat and you get the sense that Lee is capable of knocking songs like this out with little effort. 

We don’t have the whole record here. Even the “7&7 is” is a version from his old band, Love. For the most part this is a relic. 

RIP, Mr. Lee. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTTM_U-Y6qI&list=PLlvn8uktX5Lu9hy5Svhv4KooRuY4j6eDX  (Missing 5 tracks - One, Just Us, Bend Down, Down Street, and Many Rivers to Cross)

The 1981 Listening Post - Alex Chilton - Bach's Bottom

 Alex Chilton - Bach's Bottom

#39

1981 Housekeeping

Alex Chilton

Bach’s Bottom

Genre: Rock

1.5 out of 5

Requisite 80s cover: a drunken and horrible demo of “I’m So Tired”. Why is this here? And the actual version is awful as well.

Jagger/Richards’ “Singer Not the Song”. A lazy version of a B-Side that Chilton could have had fun with but, instead…it’s a pale imitation. 

“Summertime Blues”. Why, Alex, why???

If you’ve been reading just my reviews and ignored all the bigger albums that I had already rated and are being handled by guest reviewers then you would know that January 1981 has been quite a slog. 

It’s almost as though 1980 got so drunk on great rock and power pop and even post-rock and punk that the hangover of the next year was so vicious as to be nearly unlistenable. 

So, you can imagine my glee in seeing that there was an Alex Chilton record in housekeeping that I could listen to to round out my reviews of the first month of 1981.

Big Star’s importance to the movement is undeniable but that’s a bunch of years in the past and we have to deal with what came next.

And…

It’s not great. 

From what I’ve read, this is a bunch of leftovers from a half decade before and that’s a shame. I expected more. I’m not sure what the benefit is to putting out second rate Big Star songs under your own name. This record is little more than a curio. In fact, it belongs in the same storage unit as Rivers Cuomo’s Alone. But that was at least interesting. 

This. 

Is. 

Not. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/bachs-bottom/1469579320

The 1981 Listening Post - Boomtown Rats - Mondo Bongo

 Boomtown Rats - Mondo Bongo

#38

By Robbie Rist

January 1981

Mondo Bongo

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Robbie’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Genre: Power Pop With One Eye Open To The World

Change was in the air.

Simple, 60s influenced pop wasn’t holding the line.

Just singing about girls wasn’t enough anymore.

White pop music was looking for something new.

And the Boomtown Rats had been around the world.

Both lyrically and musically, you can hear its influence all over Mondo Bongo.

‘World Music’ was yet to reduce the listening experience to one long, patchouli scented, corn rowed, endless drum circle.

The Rats were among the first to usher it in.

Mood Mambo sets the tone with spoken word verses, congas and....well....bongos (mondo bongos, apparently) while musing  about snakes on Latin American stairs and the  ‘come dancing competition from the Midlands International Dance Band Orchestra’

What does it mean?

Who knows?

Sure is vibey as hell though.

Next two songs (Straight Up and This Is My Room) are somewhat more mature versions of what the Rats do best, idiosyncratic pop with crazy arrangements and fun words.

Hey! Next we get a fun song about the death of English Imperialism! Ian Smith! Cricket!

Go Man Go appears to be about fighting depression. And through it all, I haven’t yet missed a song where a guy doesn’t get the girl.

Their odd rewrite of The Stones is either a nifty experiment or a misstep. You’re mileage may vary. I myself sit in the ‘nifty experiment’ seats.

There’s a Bowie/disco/afrobeat song.

The Elephants Graveyard has among my fave Geldof lyrics:

‘You see the judge and then you check the jury

She does her hair and calls her lawyer cutie

It’s Disneyland under Marshall law’

Songs about old rich assholes never go out style.

Banana Republic is one of the signature songs of this new sound of theirs. Yeah. It’s a reggae groove but its not straight up reggae. It’s a rock tune that never fully rocks. If this was about a girl it would make the perfec soundtrack for a night on a warm beach.

As it is its a song for a night on a warm  beach during a coup.

Don’t Talk To Me feels like a bit of filler. It’s good.

I can see why its on side 2.

Got some more of that idiosyncratic pop with Hurt Hurts. (Geldof can make ‘Instant Solzhenitsyn’ just trip off the tongue like its nothing. Quite a skill).

Up All Night was a minor MTV hit and I guess the closest thing to a ‘single’ they had. 

Which to me made ZERO sense. I woulda done Elephants Graveyard but what to do I know?

And it all concludes with my favorite song on the record.

45 seconds of awesomeness.

It’s called Cheerio.

Now, I’m a fan so I have an attachment to this record that most don’t I’m sure.

It does so much so quickly.

I love it.

I wish they broke up after this record.

They didn’t.

It was one more last gasp of a record and a break up.

Cheerio would have been such a great send off.

Anyway.

On to the cons.

Tony Visconti’s production is muddy. He leaned in this reverby direction in the 80s and liked very little, if any, of it.

Yup.

That’s the cons.

The Rats embody much of what I tend to like in my rock artists. Great melodies, hooks galore and a great group of players.

Johnny fingers was the last great keyboard player. He was an actual PIANO player who did little, if any, programming.

It kind of leaves me gobsmacked that Simon Crowe and Pete Briquette are not mentioned feverishly in the same sentences as guys like Foxton and Buckler. Both are so gloriously.....themselves. Sigh.....I miss lead bass players.....

Even Cott and Roberts, who are largely relegated to rhythm guitars and ‘atmosphere’, constantly pop out of the mix with just right wrong note and the perfect time.

I highly recommend this album. It doesn’t reveal all of its charms on a first listen but there is much to see.