Toyah - Anthem
#189
May 22 1981
Toyah
Anthem
Genre: New Wave
3.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Jungles of Jupiter
We Are
After two very strong and weird records it was really only a matter of time before Toyah, who always sounded like she was trying to be a more accessible Kate Bush, would shoot for the pop charts.
Listening to her sing about how she wants to “be free” of things that lock her down like..school? I am reminded of how Charlie XCX would mine the same tropes 3 decades later. From High School Confidential to Toyah to Charlie…kids are just really oppressed by school.
As much as she decries what makes a “Pop Star” she also seems to be shooting for that status. I don’t begrudge her doing either of those things. I just wish the songs were better.
She is tripling down on her theater-weirdness on stuff like “Elocution Lesson” and it’s ugly and oh so early 80s. At the time this album was Toyah’s biggest selling record. And I can not imagine a time where people queued up to buy this but, damn, I’m happy that that’s who we as a music consuming public, were. If but for a short time.
Toyah falls into that Bowie/Bush nexus but she isn’t as wistful as the latter or, really, as creatively able as the former (who was a master at stealing other people’s ideas and making them into something terrific). So, she comes across as a bit chiding and, to be honest, she reminds me at times of Wendy O. Williams, vocally.
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