The 1982 Listening Post - John Hiatt - All Of a Sudden

 John Hiatt - All Of a Sudden

1982 Housekeeping

John Hiatt

All of a Sudden

Genre: New Wave/Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

I Look for Love

This Secret Life

Some Fun Now

The opener, “I Look for Love” is what you get when you take Elvis Costello and try to make him Peter Gabriel. The slathering of synths and gloss is too knowing of the era. It’s a good song, I bet, but Visconti and Hiatt are trying to get a hit in 1982 and that’s what happens when you do that.

I just looked at every LP review of Hiatt and I keep referencing Elvis. Truth is, these songs are all perfectly fine but lacking in urgency or hooks to make me want to return. “Some Fun Now”…that’s an Elvis song, yes?

And I wish that John had had more success so I wouldn’t make these comparisons but, they are impossible for me to avoid. 

In the end, this record is really good. Not sure it is a Hiatt fan’s go-to. But it’s good. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/all-of-a-sudden/1443745256

The 1980 Listening Post - John Hiatt - Two Bit Monster

John Hiatt - Two Bit Monster


#223

1980 Housekeeping

John Hiatt

Two Bit Monster

Genre: Is that Morton Downey Jr. on the cover??

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Pink Bedroom

Requisite 80s cover: A lackluster and plodding “I Spy (for the F.B.I.)”. It feels like it should have been recorded by Huey Lewis and the News and they would have made it more dopey fun. 

Seriously. Who stole who’s look? Even the dangling cigarette. And the scornful accusing gaze. 

And yet, inside, the songs are…well, ugly Elvis Costello. Not ugly as in the way he looks, cuz, let’s face it, Elvis was no looker, but the songs. Hiatt is playing in the ever increasingly popular Costello sandbox but his songs are just not…fun. “Pink Bedroom” should be and in Elvis’ hands it would be. It’s still a good song. As is “Good Girl, Bad World”, I just wish it was Graham Parker instead of Hiatt. Hiatt sounds more like Martin Briley. But Briley makes up for his terrible voice with clever songs like “Salt in My Tears”. 

“Face the Nation” had the chance to be great, referencing “60 Minutes” and “Time” and “Newsweek” but, leaving out Meet the Press and any other news magazine show just suggests that he wrote it while watching CBS and there were a couple magazines lying around. Lazy!

Still, Hiatt’s collection isn’t terrible. It’s just nothing that would make me rush out to buy his next one. Or the previous one. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/two-bit-monster/1443507285

The 1985 Listening Post - John Hiatt - Warming Up to the Ice Age

John Hiatt - Warming Up to the Ice Age

#25

January 1985

John Hiatt

Warming Up to the Ice Age

4 out of 5

Genre: MOR Rock

Highlights:

The Crush

Warming Up to the Ice Age

I Got a Gun

Boy do I feel old listening to this. 

Maybe it’s because I’m in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and everyone walking through the door looks like they are 6 feet from the undertaker. Which is weird since this doc is the “dermatologist to the stars”. No kidding. A well known pop diva name dropped him in a People Magazine interview. 

I expected more youthful and vital people here. 

Oh yeah. John Hiatt. 

Big, clean, meticulous Soul Rock. 

Rock for the Oldies. A theme that is beginning to take shape in 1985.

Oh, and as the Elvis Costello duet cover of “Live a little, laugh a little” by The Spinners came on, the clientele of this office completely changed. 

I get it. (The office and the album)

It’s Stevie Ray, Huey Lewis, ZZ Top, John Fogerty...all fine, all aimed squarely at your father’s wallet. It’s the soundtrack to every bloated, CAA-packaged star driven, overwrought, unfunny comedy of the era...looking at you, Legal Eagles. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/warming-up-to-the-ice-age/560599059