The 1981 Listening Post - The Pinups - Hollywood Eyes

 Reviewed by MacArthur Antigua

Released: 1981 The Pinups Hollywood Eyes Genre: Studio Session Yeoman Pop Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: Baby Don't Run Out On Me The Pinups were Glynnis Campbell, Lisa London, Mary Senecal and Tegan Taylor, and signed to CBS Records to sing radio ready rock tracks. Based on the few youtube videos I could find from this album, I’d describe their performance as “Robert Palmer ‘Addicted to Love’ video, except no Robert Palmer.” “Just About A Dream” kicks off the album by starting with the chorus that sits right on top of power piano chords, and counter balanced with a cooing backup. The effort is earnest, while the lyrics are vapid: “I’m dreamin’ / you’re just about a dream / I’m dreamin’ / you’re just about a dream / Baby, I’m dreamin’ / must be a dream.” And that lyric ISN’T the chorus. The bass line skips along gamely, like all the session players knowing that if they deliver their shift a decent check awaits. “Stage Struck” has thumping tom toms and a frisky keyboard riff, as the guitar binds it together. I appreciated that the vocal has a point of view - it’s like witnessing someone’s cool cousin deliver tough love to a younger charge. With my 2023 ears, it’s hard not to wince at its cheesiness, but I want to believe they believed in it at the time. “It’s Only Love” leans into new wave with a wonky keyboard riff balanced against traditional piano chords, all driven by a peppy snare and bass. However, the wholesome delivery of the vocal and backup harmonies undermines any “cool” that the genre sample could provide. If I had a favorite track, it’s “Baby Don’t Run Out On Me,” an assertive piano driven track with a lovely hook and counter vocals. This could’ve been a throwaway on Bangles’ “Different Light” - which was the first cassette I ever bought. It ends with “Push Push” which is full on embracing synth sounds, and exudes some personality through exaggerated cooing vocals dropping lame double entendres. If I were to do a “What does 1981 sound like?” then this would be a fair offering - some pop, some rock, some new wave, a hint of r&b/gospel. The playbook is 60s “Girl Group” where the studio puts together the track, and hopes that attractive women with solid vocals will be enough to get it over the line. However, it lacks charisma - I don’t know who is singing on which track, why they’re singing, nor why I should care. About 12 years later, the Spice Girls may have been an obvious commercial ploy like the Pinups, but at least they had the audacity to have a mission statement, and brutally efficient branding.

The 1981 Listening Post - Jackpot - Full House

 Reviewed by MacArthur Antigua

Released: 1981 Jackpot Full House Genre: Kraut Metall Rating: 2 out of 5 Highlights: What Do You Mean If we played “word association” and you gave me “German” and “Hard Rock”, then I’d say, “Scorpions.” However, with regards to capability there’s no reason why I couldn’t cite fellow Kraut-rockers “Jackpot,” as they got the chops. While they are a bit ponderous on the first track “Perfect Society”, the album really kicks off on “What Do You Mean,” a stellar attempt to ape KISS with its rambling drums, searing guitar licks and singsong backup vocals. Unfortunately, Jackpot kill the momentum on “Everyday the Same” by hauling out the acoustic guitars and try to go all “Silent Lucidity”/Queensryche on us. “Luxury” brings us back with a mid-tempo strut, showing off the robust guitar phalanx of Peter Kah, Lothar Kempf and bassist Blacky Winter. However by this time, I was losing interest. Jackpot wants to show that they’ve got multitudes, but Full House is bland in all the right places to keep it relegated to the afterthought of history. Round two of word association for “Jackpot’s Full House?” Adequate, serviceable.

The 1981 Listening Post - Major Hoople's Boarding House - The Hooples Album

 Reviewed by MacArthur Antigua

Released: 1981 Major Hoople's Boarding House The Hooples Album Genre: AM Gold, Earnest Doo-Wop Adjacent Rating: 2.5 out of 5 Highlights: I'm Runnin' After You Some of the albums I’ve reviewed for TLP have felt timeless - this is on the other end of the spectrum, it feels like I’m opening a time machine capsule. The album’s first two tracks, “Someone” and “I’m Running After You” put me in the most fascinating dinner party of sorts - I’m sitting adjacent to the earnest crooning of a 70s singer/songwriter like B.J. Thomas, across the table from someone with soaring falsettos and doo-wop harmonies like Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, with the flamboyant production flourishes of ABBA rounding out the table. It’s not challenging listening as it sounds like their ambition was cracking that “AM Gold” Time/Life Record Collection. There are strands that piqued my interest in places - a terrific harmony in a chorus here, a fascinating piano plink there. Otherwise, it’s quite forgettable. As I dug into the backstory, I learned that they were Canadian, and that their namesake is a reference to a comic strip, “Our Boarding House,” in which Major Hoople was the owner and proprietor. Perhaps if I launched a tribute band, I’d call it “Garfield’s Lasagna Dish.” All that said, I don’t really connect these songs with the source material - outside that they both seemed like very earnest and safe - two traits I certainly connect to Canada.

The 1981 Listening Post - Bpeople - Bpeople

 Reviewed by MacArthur Antigua

Released: 1981 Bpeople Bpeople Genre: Dark City Sprawl Or Music For Vampires Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: The Dark Upon receiving this assignment, I was directed to the youtube link labeled: “BPEOPLE - S/T(1981)(Post-Punk)(Art Punk)(New Wave)(Experimental Rock)(Power Pop).” After a full listen, I interpreted that less as a clumsy fan-uploaded label and more of a mathematical equation. Multiply all that together, and it emerges as “Dark City Sprawl.” It evoked vibes of wandering through a cinematic dystopian cigarette smoke-infused nightscape, but sans all of Blade Runnerian bleeps and blurbs. That’s probably due to the warm organ, acoustic guitar and saxophones, which kept me grounded in analog. On its stand out track “The Dark,” lead vocalist Alex Gibson croons “Why can’t I live / All by myself” repeatedly over a haunting guitar riff. However, this lands on me as solidarity. This is music for those who know they’re alone and are OK with being alone, yet appreciate that they’re not really alone. Akin to when I heard the Smiths back in high school, and thinking, “yeah, maybe I am that boy with the thorn in his side.” For most of the album, Tom Recchion’s propulsive snare keeps the enterprise moving forward, save the final track, “Song of the Children” which clocks in at nearly 6 minutes and serves as a melancholic coda. Given that we’re living in polycrises, I’ve noticed I’ve been leaning into nostalgic jangle pop as sonic comfort food. This ain’t that. While I probably won’t fire this up again, I respected how it does what it does on its own terms.

The 1980 Listening Post - The Room - Bitter Reaction

 Reviewed by MacArthur Antigua

Released: 1980 The Room Bitter Reaction Genre: Garage Math Rock / "Rue Britannia" Rating: 3 out of 5 Highlights: Lost Horizons Factory At the time of this indie-released “cassette album”, Liverpool’s The Room was starting to generate some heat in the music press being compared to Joy Division - perhaps for its dour, spartan arrangements. Dave Jackson’s assertive, yet sad vocals tango with Becky Stringer’s ever present basslines. On “Factory,” The guitar scritch suggests punk, but overall it’s still rather poppy and I can’t help but bob my head to the beat. Even though it’s a collection of singles, The Room does a decent job of offering a variety of pacing - “Early Warning” is a dirge, but it doesn’t ponder, and evokes the bleak state of economic affairs in Thatcher’s UK. Given the punk roots of this band, it stands to reason that their work reflects a sensibility of “Rue Britannia.” In my mind’s eye, I’m seeing rows upon rows of smokestacks. While this cassette album suggests that there’s more to come, but The Room never was able to break through and would fold in 1985. However, given the bleak times we’re in now, it makes sense that they have re-formed and released a new album a few months ago and are about to hit the concert circuit. Perhaps the world is ready (again) for The Room?

The 1981 Listening Post - The Go Betweens - Send Me a Lullaby

The Go Betweens - Send Me a Lullaby 

#600

By MacArthur Antigua

November 1981

The Go Betweens

Send Me A Lullaby

Genre: Indie Rock, Post-Punk

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

MacArthur’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Highlighteds:  

Hold Your Horses

It Could Be Better.

I was eager to review this album as I had always heard of the Go-Betweens, but had never actually listened to anything they've put out.  In turn, I've had a soft spot for Australian rock - particularly '90s outfits like The Lucksmiths and The Whitlams - and looked forward to seeing what the Go-Betweens had imprinted on them.

Welp, back to "Send Me A Lullaby," which is their debut album.  You know the phrase, "greater than the sum of it's parts"?  For me musically, it means that all of the different contributions come together to foster a larger more holistic sound.  I'm not sure if was the production values, or the approach - but starting this album left me feeling the opposite of that.  (It reminded me of the Violent Femmes' debut album, but that seemed warmer and cozier to me than this.)  I could hear each instrument distinctly - rat-a-tat snares, jangly rhythm guitars, a slappy hyperkinetic bass, occasional blaring saxophone - the spare cartilage connecting all this is Robert Forster's and Glenn McClennan's wandering vocal reminiscient of Jonathan Richman. 

On one hand, I guess it's kinda cool to be able to parse it out - but it left me thinking in my head more than actually feeling the music.  I felt like I was doing musical math in sussing out the different arpeggios and drum cadences.  And musical math isn't bad per se - For me, Spoon's "Kill The Moonlight" (2002) has that same kinda aesthetic, and I really dig that album - but for some reason it leaves me quite cold.  The sparse production values offer a sense of "I'm in the room where it's happening," yet it's not until the final three tracks that I connected with this album:  "Ride" continues the skittery guitar work, but it crescendos to a majestic chorus where the word "Ride" is sung with 7 syllables (if you squint your ears, is that Morrissey?).  Ok, I'm on board.   "Hold Your Horses" a mid-tempo rambler which is more instrumental than lyric, but the guitars shimmer and inspire a sense of expanse - this is road trip music.  The final track is "It Can Be Anyone", which at 4 minutes and 30 minutes might as well be Don McLean's "American Pie" compared to the other tracks on this record that clocked in 2:30 or less.  However, I found myself bobbing my head and rolling with the chord changes - and beamed as the instrumentation jelled together.  All the while, the straightforward and simple lyrics, bore down on me: 

The noises came and the noises went

With promises that were heaven sent

Lies are told when lives are spent

You shake him

The track ends with Forster and McClennan trading counter choruses - "You'll never never never break him" vs "One hand, One life." - the latter is the one that ends the song, and endures as the music stops playing.  It's sung in that way where you could imagine thousands of football (Australian Rules?) holding scarves over their head, and bellowing valiantly to their heroes on the pitch. (Given the outsider vibe of the Go-Betweens, their squad is probably losing, but they're singing hard anyway.)  It's a helluva way to end a debut, and I was left both: forgetting the first few tracks which nearly put me off, and scrambling to re-listen to the first few tracks because likely I must've missed the good stuff.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/send-me-a-lullaby/286548776

The 1981 Listening Post - Barry Manilow - If I Should Love Again

 Barry Manilow - If I Should Love Again

#397

By MacArthur Antigua

September 1 1981

Barry Manilow 

If I Should Love Again

Genre: Adult Contemporary

Allen’s Rating: 2 out of 5

MacArthur’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Highlights:

Don't Fall In Love With Me

I Haven't Changed the Room

"And maybe the old songs will bring back the old times /

Maybe the old lines will sound new /

Maybe she'll lay her head on my shoulder / 

Maybe old feelings will come through"

From the opening track of Barry Manilow's 8th studio album, "If I Should Love Again," you pretty much get the gist of the whole album: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."  

While I can't say I dig Manilow, I respect the guy and his craft.  Dude knows hooks.  He's got a terrific voice.  He already had about 12 years in the biz writing songs, pounding out jingles and selling albums.  

If you're a fan of the Great American Songbook, and love yourself a schmaltzy ballad - then, brother, you've come to the right place.  And apparently, a good chunk of America agreed as it went single platinum in 1981.  The ballads on this album are so on-point and of the time, you could convince me they were all from successful rom-com soundtracks, and I wouldn't bat an eye.  

For me, what makes it tough to love this album is that it's practically all ballads.  I'm not saying I need Copacabana part II, but how about at least one song over 90BPM?  Below is the track by track reaction, but overall it's yeoman Manilow and perfect 1980's Adult Contemporary.  If you're not into that...well, yeah, nothing much to see here.

Track x Track:

The Old Songs.  Yearning Ballad.  Super clean production - I think there's a conga drum tastefully placed in there?  Is it meta for wanting to bring his audience back?  

Let's Hang On.  Franki Valli & The Four Seasons Cover?  Valli's original vocal has some grit and urgency, while Manilow's is just so clean and corporate. This is the quintessential doo-wop track, and it needs hand claps and soaring falsettos - this new version has strings and a disco hi-hat.  WTF?  This is the second track? Seriously?!?  

If I Should Fall In Love.   Dramatic piano ballad.  Interesting time change between the verse and chorus.  Outside of that, it's a decent piece of work.

Don't Fall in Love With Me.  More mysterious sounding, and it actually sounds more of the time.  Mid-tempo makes it up-tempo compared to the rest of the album.  Strong sax solo in the bridge.  I like the restrained performance - it's almost like he's whispering this request to the listener.  Gets in and out in 3:40 - solid work, Barry.

Break Down The Door.  A little more saucy - with a bit more of a head bob bassline, and a disco stomp (in a good way).  Maybe I like this because I needed a li'l more juice compared to the ballad heavy front-side.  Mid song, it leaves it's steady gallop to a propulsive bridge (akin to Hall & Oates "Maneater"), but then comes back to its starting strut:    

"Do you want me to plead? Do you want me to cry?

Any proof that you need, any promise you'll buy

Do you want me to break down the door?

Do you want me to break down the door?

Break down the door."  

Yeah the chorus read pretty pedestrian, but an energized Manilow makes it work.

Somewhere Down The Road.  ...and we're back to the ballad territory.  This is the "goodbye...for now" song.  However, with the sunny chord progressions, and triumphant trumpet riffs - this track best captures what All Music's Bryan Bess says about Manilow's superpower: "Making heartbreak sound hopeful."  This felt like the perfect track to close the album.

No Other Love.  Yeesh, back to back ballads.  And this is more sad bastard than all of the other ones: "No other love / In all of the world / In all of my life / There was no other love."  It's fine as a ballad, but it's hard for me to distinguish them when there's like 6 of them on one album.  However, about half way through the track, he appears to restart the song after an orchestral interlude.  It's a bit disorienting, almost like this song is a medley of two different songs?  Then after about a minute, he comes back to the "No Other Love" refrain, bigger and with key change. 

Fools Get Lucky.  No Other Love had a lush and dense arrangement - while this one does have strings, it's a bit more spare, and it serves the track better.  As much as he can make heartbreak seem hopeful; this track illustrates how he can make gratitude seem melancholy: "But fools get lucky / Fortune must like me / When people ask where you came from / I tell them that / Fools get lucky."

I Haven't Changed The Room.   Probably the most depressing song on the whole track.  But the songwriting is so succinct, and the arrangement of just piano and Manilow's voice is tidy.  This could've been from a Broadway musical, it's so tight.  At 2:20, it's like the Manny Pacquiao of the album - pound for pound (or measure for measure) the tightest track.

Let's Take All Night.  Even though it's a swaying paced goodbye song, it's still optimistic. As the narrator and his lover faces the inevitable goodbye, there's at least a sense of agency - a sort of spitting into the wind: "Smile for me / Why don't we / Make this the sweetest of memories / The love that we make now / Is all we have"

You're Runnin' Too Hard.  There's a bluesy piano bounce, and a thucka-thucka back beat.  This song is nothing like the others, yet it's still very much Manilow on-brand with his sauntering vocal and eager backing vocals. Even though the song is a bit of a lament, it may be the most fun he's having on the whole album. I kept waiting for it to break into the American Bandstand theme.

https://open.spotify.com/album/53qLWhsWV3ICiV2aXp2KB4?si=sV2W-ZuGSMm-o9PxgIk5Pw

The 1981 Listening Post - Killing Joke - What's THIS For...?

 Killing Joke - What's THIS For...?

#260

By MacArthur Antigua

June 1981

Killing Joke

What's This For...?

Genre:  Early Industrial?, Post-Punk

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

MacArthur’s Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Highlighteds:  

Tension

Follow The Leaders

Growing up in south suburban Chicago in the 80s meant that you knew about Wax Trax records and Ministry. Somewhere in a shoebox in my ol' bedroom closet are ticket stubs to see Front 242 at the Cabaret Metro back in the early 90s.  Being the team captain of my mediocre high school tennis team (GO AMOS ALONZO STAGG CHARGERS) - that meant I got to run the jambox for practices, and that meant we were gonna hit hundreds of groundstrokes to the unrelenting beat of Nitzer Ebb's "That Total Age."

All this to say, is that when I got the assignment of listening to Killing Joke's,, "What's This For...", I was intrigued to have the opportunity to listen to a forerunner of the industrial rock genre.  Comprised of 8 tracks, this follow-up to their self-titled debut shapes the playbook for this new musical flavor:  searing guitar riffs, war drums, yawping vocals, and repetition, repetition, repetition.  (Did I neglect to mention "repetition"?)  

Even after a few listens, it was hard to separate them.  However, "Tension" was a highlight with its "My Sharona" drum riff, hand claps and a careening guitar chop.  This could've easily been on the cutting room floor of the final draft of ESPN's Jock Jams.  

"Follow The Leaders" leads off side two of the album, (or at least I assume as it was track 5), and it holds off on the war drums for a few seconds, and allows more electronic beats to sear through the speakers.  To continue the ESPN feed, this would've been perfect background music for "Match of the Day" footie highlights as it sounds laced with testosterone and warm lager.

If there's a miss, perhaps it's "Madness" as it clocks in at 7:53.  This stuff works best in briefer bites, but perhaps at track 7 that was the time to take liberties.  Despite that, it's a solid entry in the electronica/yawp-rock canon.

https://open.spotify.com/album/3rw5vGk8j0Kd72T3KkrVmD?si=xp0kLsGqTfuGJ4UigXmdHA

The 1981 Listening Post - The Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire

 The Birthday Party - Prayers On Fire

#148

By MacArthur Antigua

April 6 1981

The Birthday Party

Prayers on Fire

Genre:  Post-Punk, Proto-Goth? Grunge-abilly? Mood music for villain's lairs?

Allen’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

MacArthur’s Rating: 4 ouf ot 5

Highlights:  

Zoo Music Girl

King Ink

Ho Ho

This album isn't exactly for me.  

However, I rated it 4 stars because it does exactly what it sets out to do - introduce The Birthday Party, a post-punk outfit out of Melbourne, Australia, who apparently thought, "Hey, villains need more mood music for their lairs.  So, let's create a dark soundtrack for outcasts and outlaws."  .  

It's ambitious - the Party delivers dense tracks, sometimes tackling different tempos, and volumes (from quiet primal guttural growls to screeching wails), and usually within the same song.   Peripatetic bass-lines collide with relentless percussion that seemed like they threw a drum kit down two flights of stairs.  Forlorn guitar riffs intersect with bawdy horn blares.  Haunted organ chords push up against another.  Through it all, Nick Cave, carnival barks and seduces the listener to join in this Goth den of iniquity.  

Again, it's not my deal, but I respect the commitment to the bit.  

Picks to Click: "Zoo Music Girl" because it kicks off the album and establishes their thesis with urgency:

Our life together is a hollow tooth / 

Spit out the shells, spit out the shells /

You know exactly what I'm talking about /

Don't drag the orchestra into this thing 

Mid-album, "Ho Ho" is a hypnotic mess of bass and timpani drums and guitar arpeggios, and capped with a sinewy lead vocal.  It's followed up two tracks later by "King Ink", a ponderous and plodding track that surfs on Cave's desperate charisma.  

https://open.spotify.com/album/0UdWdUFVEQto3fokLzNAXU?si=-ETQ5FHfSYmLAZVOvLUC7w

The 1981 Listening Post - James taylor - Dad Loves His Work

 James Taylor - Dad Loves His Work

#117

By MacArthur Antigua

James Taylor

Dad Loves His Work

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

MacArthur’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Genre:  Singer-Songwriter; Slightly Yacht Folk

Highlights:

Stand and Fight

Summer's Here

Sugar Trade

Growing up top 40 pop/metal in the south suburban Chicago 'burbs, and then rebelling against that in my later teen years by going full Britpop (Smiths / New Order / The Cure / Erasure), meant that there massive swaths of music that I just missed.  When I stepped on campus at Northwestern University in 1992, it seemed like I was handed three CDs to catch up with my more cultured peers: Indigo Girls (self-titled debut), Legend: The Best of Bob Marley, and Greatest Hits (James Taylor compilation album).

That's pretty much my "pocket" with JT.  Sure, I may catch an occasional cover here and there, but I didn't have much reason to root around his back catalog.  That is until Allen asked me if I'd pick up "Dad Loves His Work", Taylor's 10th studio album released in 1981.  

The quick and dirty - it's probably not fair to Taylor to compare this album to his Greatest Hits compilation, but that's how I'm coming into it.  And it's eminently forgettable.  Taylor's got a butterscotch smooth voice, and the session musicians hit their marks.  The backup vocals are clean and crisp.   It's kinda like watching a team that's been eliminated from the playoffs finish up the last couple of weeks of the season.  Sure, there may be moments of individual brilliance here and there, but the whole enterprise lacks any urgency or importance.

Anyway, below are my reactions to each track:

Hard Times.  Clean production.  Doobie bounce piano.  Call and response w/back up singers.  Kinda inspirational, I guess.  It's kinda like blues without the blues.

Her Town Too (w/JD Souther).  Apparently this "Divorce-core" track hit #11 in the Billboard charts, and it checks all the boxes for that Adult Contemporary chart.

Hour That the Morning Comes.  Acoustic riff opens.  JT doing that bluesy talk-drawl.  There are no rough edges on this track.  Even the grungy guitar solo has a satin sheen.

I Will Follow.  Another swaying snoozer, with lilting backup vocals.  Some nice touches with accented guitars, but it's mainly a piano rambler.

Believe It or Not.  Quiet, yet hopeful ballad that celebrates the narrator being reunited with the love of his life.  Unfortunately this only highlights how pedestrian JT's lyrics are: "Today the world seems brighter. Light and bright and right somehow."  

Stand and Fight - "the woke song."  Starts with a bull-horn esque declaration, which affirms that nothing is gonna change until someone, uhh, stands and fight.  It continues with assertive guitars, and a phalanx of backup vocals.  What it has in earnestness, it lacks in any sort of memorable hook.  I could imagine some also-ran Democratic candidate using this as entrance music at a wintry New Hampshire fundraiser.  Odds are, this same candidate sports Birkenstocks and utility vests.

Only for Me.  It's a five minute track, and I'm still not really sure what it's about as I got bored halfway through the first verse.

Summer's Here.  Bossa nova beat, a cowbell here and there.  We get harmonica during the bridge interlude.  Nasally cheeky vocal delivery of lyrics that *checks notes* celebrate how great the season of summer is.  I didn't realize that summer's Q-rating was so low that it required this brand jingle, but here we are.  It's almost like a boring cousin of "Mexico."  I liked it mainly because it reminded me of that song, and it only lasts 2:43.

Sugar Trade.  Sweet Baby James waltz that actually uses the Transatlantic Slave Trade as source material.  And somehow, he centers the white fishermen in this particular narrative.  WTF, JT?!?  Thank God he stashed this song toward the back of the album or else I woulda bailed earlier.   

London Town.  Some nice JT harmonies, but dripped with melancholy.

That Lonesome Road.  To close out the LP, goes nearly full a capella.  Actually, of all the tracks, this one works the most.  Haunting and melancholic chorus.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2MDPMawWYx0T4FjdZWCU6f?si=W8eF7977QBumBnjcap4Bmg