Smokie - Solid Ground
#655
1981 Housekeeping LISTENING POST ADMIN DISCOVERY
Smokie
Solid Ground
Genre: Keeping the latter Day Beatles Alive
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
Jet Lagged
Rock n Roll Woman
Melody Goes On
Requisite 80s cover: “Take Good Care Of My Baby”. It’ll never erase the original but they do a fine job of presenting a crowd pleaser in concert, I imagine.
I remember when I first discovered Smokie. It was during those Soulseek days. (Ah…file sharing…has it really been 15 years?)
I was in a conversation with someone about Chinn and Chapman and they sent me a track I had never heard. “Next Door to Alice”. It was bonkers. And I knew that Smokie would always have a place in my heart.
For one song.
I got distracted and never dove further.
Sue me, Pop Punk was the thing at the time and I couldn’t get enough of Bowling for Soup. (They have a new track, btw, and it’s excellent)
Smokie is still “Shang a lang” ing on this record and, like The Sweet, they are making a go of it without their original benefactors.
But, like Status Quo, this is the kind of glam-tinged record that makes me go “huh. Not bad.”
The genre is moribund by this point but, if I was programming Deep Cuts You’ve Never Heard” on Sirius I’d surely add a couple tracks from this record to that rotation.
They bite a little hard on The Beatles, looking at you “My Mother Don’t Like Rock and Roll” but I’ll allow it. But I’m here for the prog-folkie “Melody Goes On”.
https://open.spotify.com/album/0E3zjvVFItkpRZz6FpDzOb?si=Dbko0UnOSYG-vhwppMkLcg
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