The 1981 Listening Post - Debbie Harry - Kookoo

 Debbie Harry - Kookoo

#350

By Scott Von Doviak

July 27 1981

Debbie Harry

KooKoo

Genre: Funk/New Wave fusion

Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Jam Was Moving

Chrome

Military Rap

This album was released on my fourteenth birthday, but I did not get it for my birthday. In fact, I’m not sure I ever listened to it before today, although I certainly remember the cover. You couldn’t miss that striking H.R. Giger image, which I seem to recall staring back at me from record store shelves for months on end. Although I had a couple of Blondie records at the time, I was never tempted to buy Ms. Harry’s solo debut.

Produced by Nile Rodgers  and Bernard Edwards of Chic—because it was the early ‘80s and that was the law at the time—KooKoo is the logical next step following Blondie’s dabbling in disco, reggae and rap. In an alternate universe there may be a version of this album with a couple of huge hits on it, but they’re missing from this version, which mostly sounds like filler. Granted, it’s state-of-the-art filler for the time, full of pulsing keyboards and jittery guitars that never quite hit an irresistible groove. “The Jam Was Moving” comes close, but the jam just isn’t moving enough. “Chrome” is a moody Harry/Stein composition that wouldn’t have been out of place on Eat to the Beat, but wouldn’t come close to being your favorite song on it. “Surrender” is a half-baked sketch, “Inner City Spillover” is another stab at reggae, as generic as could be., and “Backfired,” the flop single, quickly wears out its welcome. Harry snaps out of her slumber for “Under Arrest,” and “Military Rap” gets points for weirdness and its Devo groove. Still, as funk/new wave fusion goes, this is no Remain in Light.

Oh, I promised a Debbie Harry anecdote. In the fall of 1990, when I first moved to L.A., I got an unpaid “internship” as a production assistant on the forgotten indie film Intimate Stranger. Ms. Harry starred as a phone sex operator being stalked by a sicko in the kind of slick, empty thriller that played endlessly on cable in those days. A couple of memorable moments: One day I was assigned to drive her and Chris Stein, who was visiting the set, back to their hotel. They asked if I was a bass player and insisted I looked like a bass player, but I never figured out if they meant a specific bass player or just a bass player in general. I was not a bass player, so I did not end up in a band with them. In another incident I’m sorry I missed, she mooned co-star James Russo. And on the last night of shooting, she got drunk and somehow got ahold of one of the walkie-talkies, and kept disrupting the filming by announcing she needed a diaper. I think she was joking.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2bJZN22JIYf2CdOIOrp0PC?si=33ioJf7uTougXArwwOa5bw