Paul Warren and Explorer - One of the Kids
#493
1980 Housekeeping LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
Paul Warren & Explorer
One of the Kids
Genre: Let’s thank the Knack for stuff like this.
5 out of 5
Highlights:
Just One of the Kids
Takin’ Her Back
The Others
Mr. A&R Man
Suzanne
Kiss Me Krissy
Another album from the start of the decade has popped up as we are getting read to end 1980 and it’s really something.
The theme of 1980 is easily Power Pop’s Last Hurrah and this one has everything you expect from it.
Warren sounds a bit like John Mellencamp. He writes songs that are just snotty enough to bring that punk aesthetic with tight, assertive chord changes that reminds me of The Jags, another terrific album discovery from this year.
The line from Buddy Holly to 1980 includes this album as a tributary.
If The Andersons! Were still around I would beg them to cover “The Others”. It’s right up their alley. “Mr. A&R Man”, too. In fact, Derrick Anderson sounds a LOT like Warren and I wonder how many other Power Pop bands of 20 years later were influenced by the ghost of this band.
Side One is a Power Pop masterpiece.
Side Two is filled with spectacular Power Pop tracks like “Kiss Me Krissy”.
This is a gem by someone who has seemingly disappeared. Yes he became an important member of Richard Marx’s band and he’s dabbled elsewhere but there’s no footprint of Paul Warren on the streamers. And that, my friends, is what we in synagogue call a goddamned motherfucking shame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5lYIkniIoo&list=PLlvn8uktX5LtXkcCFnGlgM_PHFIAcb7Gt
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