Reviewed by Paul J Zickler
Released: 1981 The Lookalikes Daydreamin' At Night Genre: False New Wave Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: Die Laughing The Lookalikes, eh? Soundalikes is more like it. Tell me "Just What You Got" doesn’t sound just like the Cars. The title even sounds just like Just What I Needed. Same song structure too. Well, derivative new wave can be fun, right? Even messy or cheesy or dumb new wave. Is this any of that? We shall see. The next tune has more of a pop metal feel, with a thumping one-note bass line, but also some vocoder. During this guitar solo, I’m going to check where the band comes from. Ah, Ireland. I might have guessed somewhere in Scandinavia. OK, the guitar solo is over. How long is this song? Three twenty? Feels like it’s been going on for ten minutes. Whew, over. Here’s an even longer song that’s a heartfelt, searching ballad. It’s called Always Searching. The chorus goes “Always searching / What are we searching for?” There’s some almost interesting synth stuff and some syrupy guitar echo effects. I can hear the Irish influence here, if only because it’s a bit murky and there’s some emotion just below the surface. Lots of surface. A song about radio called Radio. It’s upbeat and repetitious. I had a hard time determining whether they were taking the “radio sucks” approach, a la Elvis Costello, or the “radio is great but the industry sucks” approach, a la Rush. “It seems that everywhere I go / I always hear the radio / I’m now receiving clear and loud / My brain is going round and round / Please turn off the radio.” The end of the song is the phrase “Turn it off” repeated 8 times. Radio = bad. I’ll Never Forget You lives in boring, straightforward pop ballad territory. I’m not going to waste words on this treacle. Next. I’d like to thank Sheffield for going to the trouble of creating a Spotify playlist consisting of the 11 songs originally on this album. Such dedication. The title track, Daydreamin' at Night, comes next. There’s a full minute of wind sound effects, wind chimes, and moody guitar before the song starts. Eventually the tempo picks up a bit, but not in an exciting, interesting way. The chorus is those three chords from All Along the Watchtower. You know the ones. There’s a key change for the guitar solo, so that’s something. Really though, this is a boring song. Why start an album with a Cars tribute and then turn into Starship? Feels like false advertising. Die Laughing has a mischievous synth/guitar figure that repeats until it loses its mischief. Some cute harmonies and stop-start rhythms make it less boring than the last two songs. They tried some stuff on this one, and I appreciate that. Is it a highlight? Relative to the rest of the album, I guess so. “Pretty boys like to dance all night / The pretty boys / Pretty girls stay home at night / Alone / But that’s all right” What’s your point, Lookalikes? “Pretty boys have to realize / There’s nobody gonna sympathize / Pretty boys have to make the choice / If they still wanna be / Pretty boys.” This is like a new wave song written by a band that wanted to be Aerosmith two years earlier. It’s kind of yucky. Bullet in His Back betrays the boring rock roots of this band even further. “I’m not afraid to fight / I’m not afraid to stand up / For what I think is right.” Except it’s painfully slow and dull. I felt like kicking the drummer and telling him to play faster. I guess they were going for Deeply Meaningful. Nope. Find Out opens with a dainty piano figure over a racing beat and feels promising. But there’s actually a lyric that goes, “I know you’re moving much too slow,” and then the chorus comes, and sure enough, they slow the tempo down. It’s one of those finger pointing songs: “Life’s too short / You better take that step outta life / You’ll never know what it’s all about” etc. And then comes the inevitable weedly weedly guitar solo. And now the singer is yelling at me. Ugh. The final song is actually a little power pop rocker. It uses the most basic 1-4-5 chord progression imaginable, at least until the chorus and guitar break. Still, I don’t hate it. But there’s no second verse. Right around 1:45 it just becomes the singer repeating “You gotta shout / Go ahead and shout / You shouldn’t be afraid to shout” for over a minute. It also begins and ends with the same silly “melting guitar” effect. Yet it’s the closest thing to an earworm the album offers. I don’t want to completely slag these guys. I think I was just expecting a very different album than what I got. However, I’m not going to relisten to all of it with different expectations. How’s this: If you like boring rock music, you might like The Lookalikes.
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