The 1981 Listening Post - Mi-Sex - Shanghaied

 Reviewed by Paul J Zickler

Released: October 1981 Mi-Sex Shanghaied Genre: New Wave Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Highlights: Mystery Missing Person Caught In The Act Falling In And Out Shanghaied, the third album by New Zealanders Mi-Sex, came out on the CBS label and sold poorly. It was followed by a fourth and final album that sold even worse, and that was it. The band was made up of former prog musicians who switched to a more synth-based sound after hearing Ultravox’s debut album. I don’t hear much prog, if any, but it’s not hard to detect a superior level of musicianship compared to many of the Johnny-come-lately new wave bands of the day. The production also stands out: Wikipedia says the album was produced by the band themselves, so that’s impressive, I guess. I’m not completely sure how this ended up in the cutout bin. On the best songs (Mystery, Missing Person, Caught in the Act) the playing and singing are consistently first rate, and the songwriting holds up well: chord progressions change multiple times rather than there being one riff that lasts 4 minutes. Inventive synth melodies bubble up and drop out, elegant guitar solos sweep through, strong vocals keep their cool until the passion rises, and a bubbly nonstop beat moves under all of it. Maybe the lyrics verge on insipid (“And did you know / There’s no civilians in China / In China” “She had tears in her wine / Oh, she coulda been mine”), but these guys are more interested in being Midge Ure than Elvis Costello, so clever lyrics aren’t so important. There’s a bit of Duran Duran macho posturing, which may be off putting to some, but it obviously doesn’t compare to the rampant misogyny of metal. It’s geek music played by bros, I guess. It’s easy to imagine putting this album on at a party and letting it play almost all the way through. You get 8 tracks in a row that are uniformly listenable, all with a similar feel. The first departure from the nonstop party beat is the title tune, Shanghaied. It brings the piano, guitar and vocals up, and tells the “sad” tale of a man who’s been “framed” by a woman. Lyrically, it’s hopelessly dated, but the video is kind of cute. The tenth track also departs from the party formula, but much more successfully. Falling In and Out sounds like a college radio new wave hit, and maybe it was – it has 343,000 plays on Spotify. The video makes the band look a little creepy, but they are called “My Sex,” so what are ya gonna do? The last song is a bit more annoying than the party tracks, but it’s got some clever whistling and ends quickly, so that’s fine, I guess. A very competent outing from a competent band that probably had no idea they were on the road to oblivion. According to Whammo (aka “The Encyclopedia of Australian Rock”), this was “arguably the band’s best album,” but by 1981, “the likes of Split Enz, INXS and Men At Work had grabbed the public’s attention, and Mi-Sex barely got a look in.” So there you have it, I guess.