1980 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
Joey Wilson
Going Up
Genre: Forgotten New Wave/Power Pop
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
If You Don’t Want My Love
Taking Me Back
Underground
I Was a Fool
Out of Our World
Let’s connect Blondie to U2 and we will use the most arcane record we can find to do it. Cuz, I’m 100% sure there are a gazillion ways to “six degrees of Kevin Bacon”-ing those two bands. But we’re going to talk about this way so you you can mesmerize people at parties.
And, by “mesmerize” I mean, “ensure that no one wants to invite you to more parties”.
Or maybe they like this sort of thing.
Let’s dive in and talk about Going Up, the ONLY record by Local Philadelphia legend, Joey Wilson.
Joey Wilson was the first signing of a new label: Modern Records.
Goldberg was obviously connected, since after this record flopped he concentrated on promoting his other business partner and put out a little record by Stevie Nicks called Bella Donna.
So, he was able to enlist a well known and suddenly out of work keyboardist-turned-producer to produce the record. One Jimmy Destri, late of the broken up Blondie. And Destri pulls out all the stops.
Just as a side note…man, does he sound like Glenn Tilbrook. In every great way.
The ominousness of The Brains on the opener, “If You Don’t Want My Love” sets this album squarely in the New Wave world. It’s glossy, and lush and dark and then gives way to a Billy Joel - meets Elvis Costello on the New Wave blacktop, “Taking Me Back”.
Those two tracks bash into the showstopper The broken-hearted ballad, the single, “Underground” which explodes with strings and horns and suggests the Billy Joel song that Billy never wrote.
That brings us to “Hold On Girl”, which is where we get to talk about U2. And this is author assumption. Because I hear that song and it reminds me, from a production standpoint, of Steve Lillywhite. And The Edge. And I have to believe that it was this song that caught certain ears because after this record came out, and landed with a thud, Destri was invited to potentially produce u2’s War with Steve. They worked on three songs that have come out in various forms over the decades and, well, we all know that Destri didn’t end up being the producer on that, or any other, U2 album. But, because of THIS record, he got the shot to produce that one.
The roots of 80s rock is in this thing. I hear not just the overproduction of Lillywhite but the song-stylings of Neil Finn. I would put Wilson next to anything Split Enz or Crowded House put out and you might think they were the same groups. Just without the incessant hooks that are needed to crack the charts.
And the title track is a work of 80s Cars-esque majesty. But even they never really got this epic.
What happened to Goldberg? He would manage Nirvana.
And Wilson? He died of a heroin addiction at the age of 43. His lasting legacy is that you can buy this record for $2.75 in Mint condition on Discogs.
Excuse me while I overpay for shipping….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=va4P3zdvKFQ&list=PLlvn8uktX5LvbrTGop70Iu6HT7S1UaRUS
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