#253/1378
June 1986
Missing Persons
Color in Your Life
Genre: Rock
4.25 out of 5
Highlights:
Color in Your Life
No Secrets
We Don’t Know Love At All
I was in High School, holed up in my room, most likely not studying for a Geometry final (which makes it really hard for me to come down on my daughter for not doing well in math) and listening to WDHA, “The Parkway to Rock”(!!!! It was Jersey, y’all).
I knew the answer to some dumb question they asked and called in on my private phone my parents got me. Yes, I had my own phone line. No, I didn’t really have any friends to call. Not a lot, that is. Sigh.
My prize? A Missing Persons record. Spring Session M
But I would have to go IN the studio to pick it up.
It wasn’t worth it to me.
My next experience with Missing Persons was seeing a taping of “Hit Me Baby, One More Time” a mid-sos game show with one hit wonders vying for attention. They appeared, played “Words” and a Kylie Minogue song. Animotion was on that show as well, but I forgot that until I looked it up. I did recall that P.M. Dawn won that episode and they really shouldn’t have.
This MP album is crunchier than their previous stuff. It’s bigger. Assertive. Muscular. I think I like it more than their others. Terry Bozzio is on fire here. You know who this reminds me of? A 2000s Los Angeles band called Powder. I didn’t connect how much they owed to Missing Persons. Which explains their ultimate lack of success, I guess.
Color me in the minority. I loved this poundingly senseless record. Especially how it closes on some weird Peter Gabriel wannabe track that is unlike anything I’ve heard them do before.
