Reviewed by Allen Lulu / LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
Released: 1982 The Bats (US) How Pop Can You Get? Genre: Power Pop Rating: 4.75 out of 5 Highlights: How Pop Can You Get? Not Easy For Me Mr. Peculiar Living In Alaska Not My Girl Anymore Hey Teen-Age Every Night Too Out / Bottom Of The Ninth Popgun (bonus track on the 2008 re-issue) There isn’t a bad track on here. True story: In my Covid haze I forgot to close out my audio recording app so everything funneled through it made this record sound awful. I was about to give it 4.5 stars based on that even though the production and mastering was so awful. My bad. I closed it out during the penultimate song and, lucky me, I got to listen to the entire thing again!!! Who the heck were The Bats? Well, I’m glad you asked. Before the soundtracks for the likes of Paul Thomas Anderson. Before producing Fiona Apple and Kanye. Before the stints at the Club Largo. This was Jon Brion’s band. And it’s a banger. It lies somewhere between Sparks and Jellyfish. With, yes, a little bit of The Tubes (“Every Night”). It’s like … an 80s Fountains of Wayne. Put this in the same box as Game Theory for me. Power Pop gems that no one heard or ever will hear. “Not My Girl Anymore” is the theme song to a sit-com that never happened. But, damn, it should. 10 years later this is the theme to some CW show. That is not a bad thing, btw. From the liner notes: “"Living In Alaska" and "Hey Teen-age" are early eight track sessions, some of our first. We had so much fun that it seemed that re-recording for the sake of higher tech would have been an anti climax. Pardon the hiss level.” This album is damned near perfect.
No comments:
Post a Comment