The 1986 Listening Post - Chris Isaak - Chris Isaak

Chris Isaak - Chris Isaak

#560

December 1986

Chris Isaak

Chris Isaak

Genre: Dust Bowl Power Pop

3 out of 5 (cuz, fuck this boring, derivative, unimaginative, one-note guy already)

Highlights:

Wild Love

This might sound crazy but that first track “You Owe Me Some Kind of Love”,  reminds me of a Partridge Family tune is sung in a California dust bowl. Listen to it and tell me it doesn’t have David Cassidy all over it. 

How did this guy become famous? He has so little to offer here... again. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/chris-isaak/414503872

The 1985 Listening Post - Chris Isaak - Silvertone

Chris Isaak - Silvertone

#7
January 1985
Chris Isaak
Silvertone
Genre: Roots Rock/Rockabilly
2.5 out of 5

I don't know the Chris Isaak story. How did this kid from Stockton put out a debut album with players like Prairie Prince playing drums and songs that "Gone Rydin'" which ended up on two soundtracks that year (American Flyers and Blue Velvet) and another , the opening track, "Dancin'" was featured in the movie Modern Girls and on a couple tv shows.
The album is fine, I guess. It's like soft Cramps. So, credit his management, then?
But, then there's his relationship with David Lynch. Someone who is decidedly NOT of the mainstream and Isaak ends up not just with songs in Lynch movies but appearing IN Lynch's Fire Walk with Me. There's an incongruity here. I don't really get it.
Anyway...slow down the rockabilly revival from 3 years before and try to sexify it and you have Isaak's brand of Rock. Which is to say, super dull.
This album came out 34 years before this listen.
Elvis Presley's first album was 29 years old when Silvertone came out. Just saying.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/silvertone/414093485