Sorrows - Love Too Late...The Real Album
1981 Housekeeping LISTENING POST DISCOVERY THAT ISN’T CUZ…WELL…
August 14 2021
Sorrows
Love Too Late…The Real Album
Genre: Power Pop
4.5 out of 5
Highlights:
Christabelle
Love Too Late
Play This Song (On the Radio)
Breaking My Heart (Over You)
What I Used to Know
Street Punk Blues
Requisite 80s cover: The Kinks’ “Tired of Waiting for You”. Arthur and Joey, et al make this pop, it’s crisp and edgy and big and delivers an ode to “You Really Got Me” right smack in the middle and I would pay to see this one in concert if they burst right into that song and then brought us all the way back.
Here it is, gang.
1981 isn’t over. And, no, even though we have over 100 records from that year to get to, we are STILL hopping into 1982, don’t worry.
But this album is legend.
It’s an age old story…Boys meet label. Label puts out their debut which is more delicious than a toasted Everything Bagel with schmear and whitefish salad and sable topped with jersey tomato and salt.
Album makes noise so label says, go make number two! And! We’ll give you a classic producer. Who wouldn’t love to be produced by Shel Talmy??
And then Shel does the band dirty, bringing in session men behind their backs and putting instruments all over it that no one in the band would ever play live.
And the album is a dud.
The band folds. The label doesn’t care.
And we at The Listening Post sit around waiting until we finally get to hear it.
And, boy, was it worth the wait.
If this had been released in 1981 I’m not sure it does much for the band but that’s not because it’s not a quality platter.
Quite the contrary. It’s because 1981 was the year of the Knacklash. We were all done with the updated Buddy Holly sound by 1981 and ready to move on.
But, now…thanks to Big Stir, we get to hear it as it was intended.
And, it’s gooooooood.
If I hear this right, Arthur writes the songs about girls who let him down or that he’s left or leaving (the excellent would-be single “Christabelle”) or just went sour (“Crying Time” “Love Gone Wrong” “It’s Not Love Anymore”) and women who don’t know what they are missing out on (“Breaking My Heart Over You”)and Joey has the songs about the girls who had their chance and missed it (“Love Too Late”) or are just bad choices (“Rita”)
After those selections we get a scorching plea to play their songs on the radio, aptly titled, “Play This Song (On the Radio)”, which is near reckless abandon vocally (in a good way) but held together as a tightly stitched Power Pop gem that, honestly, I have already added to my top 80s PP list and slots nicely next to my favorite Jags tunes.
The thing about The Beatles and Queen is that the two main guys always gave opportunities to the other two. Right? For the aforementioned it was the delightfully dopey Ringo songs or the perennials by George.
In Queen you got massive singles out of Deacon and Roger.
But, rarely did you get a beefy glam rocker with a skiffle beat like you do with Ricky Street’s “What I Used to Know” which comes at the right time. Right near the end after the cover, which acts as a cleanser giving Street a lane to take a leftish turn and get us all excited again.
And then, in the end, it gets the jangly, pianey, Rip-roaring “Street Punk Blues”, that MUST have crushed in concert.
I love that this record has come out the way it has. But I also wish that it had come out in 81 this way as it was meant to sound.
Congrats to Listening Post members, Arthur Alexander and Joey Cola for showing us all how it’s done.
Dare I ask for…a tour?
https://music.apple.com/us/album/love-too-late-the-real-album/1574231715
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