The 1981 Listening Post - Debbie Harry - Kookoo

 Debbie Harry - Kookoo

#350

By Scott Von Doviak

July 27 1981

Debbie Harry

KooKoo

Genre: Funk/New Wave fusion

Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Jam Was Moving

Chrome

Military Rap

This album was released on my fourteenth birthday, but I did not get it for my birthday. In fact, I’m not sure I ever listened to it before today, although I certainly remember the cover. You couldn’t miss that striking H.R. Giger image, which I seem to recall staring back at me from record store shelves for months on end. Although I had a couple of Blondie records at the time, I was never tempted to buy Ms. Harry’s solo debut.

Produced by Nile Rodgers  and Bernard Edwards of Chic—because it was the early ‘80s and that was the law at the time—KooKoo is the logical next step following Blondie’s dabbling in disco, reggae and rap. In an alternate universe there may be a version of this album with a couple of huge hits on it, but they’re missing from this version, which mostly sounds like filler. Granted, it’s state-of-the-art filler for the time, full of pulsing keyboards and jittery guitars that never quite hit an irresistible groove. “The Jam Was Moving” comes close, but the jam just isn’t moving enough. “Chrome” is a moody Harry/Stein composition that wouldn’t have been out of place on Eat to the Beat, but wouldn’t come close to being your favorite song on it. “Surrender” is a half-baked sketch, “Inner City Spillover” is another stab at reggae, as generic as could be., and “Backfired,” the flop single, quickly wears out its welcome. Harry snaps out of her slumber for “Under Arrest,” and “Military Rap” gets points for weirdness and its Devo groove. Still, as funk/new wave fusion goes, this is no Remain in Light.

Oh, I promised a Debbie Harry anecdote. In the fall of 1990, when I first moved to L.A., I got an unpaid “internship” as a production assistant on the forgotten indie film Intimate Stranger. Ms. Harry starred as a phone sex operator being stalked by a sicko in the kind of slick, empty thriller that played endlessly on cable in those days. A couple of memorable moments: One day I was assigned to drive her and Chris Stein, who was visiting the set, back to their hotel. They asked if I was a bass player and insisted I looked like a bass player, but I never figured out if they meant a specific bass player or just a bass player in general. I was not a bass player, so I did not end up in a band with them. In another incident I’m sorry I missed, she mooned co-star James Russo. And on the last night of shooting, she got drunk and somehow got ahold of one of the walkie-talkies, and kept disrupting the filming by announcing she needed a diaper. I think she was joking.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2bJZN22JIYf2CdOIOrp0PC?si=33ioJf7uTougXArwwOa5bw

The 1981 Listening Post - Tuxedomoon - Desire

 Tuxedomoon - Desire

#44

January 1981

By Scott Von Doviak

Tuxedomoon

Desire

Genre: No Wave/Avant Garde

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Highlights:

East/Jinx

Incubus (Blue Suit)

I was unfamiliar with Tuxedomoon before this Listening Post assignment, and I’m not sure why. Certainly they wouldn’t have gotten any mainstream radio airplay back in my formative years, but by college in the late ‘80s, when I was seeking out more adventurous stuff, it seems they would have popped up on my radar. Never happened, but if it had I figure I would have given this one listen and decided it was not for me.

Don’t get me wrong, this is adventurous, singular stuff, at times calling to mind the Residents, Tom Waits, and the Doors, but while I enjoy demented carnival music as much as the next guy, Desire gets a bit too dissonant for my liking at times. The opening epic “East/Jinx” weighs in at nearly 15 minutes and runs through several phases: an opening instrumental section that wouldn’t be out of place on the Fire Walk with Me soundtrack, a Gypsy caravan interlude, and finally an electronic freakout that sounds like a malfunctioning modem from the late 90s. I rather enjoyed it up until that last part, but the mix of styles sets the tone for what follows.

“Victims of the Dance” sounds like a later Doors track where the Lizard King spouts his poetry while Ray Manzarek noodles on the keyboards. “Incubus (Blue Suit)” is downright poppy and danceable, in a “Goth night at the club” sort of way. The title track is repetitive, “Again” suggests a drunken Phantom of the Opera, “In the Name of Talent” is noisy skronk I’d really have to be in the mood for, and “Holiday for Plywood” is like a jaunty score from a ‘40s melodrama that slowly descends into hell. Tuxedomoon definitely weren’t following trends and I appreciate the oddball risk-taking, but I don’t see myself listening to Desire very often.

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0ZoSobrMgDcDkICS0G6f95?si=ESEOIW_PTEyw6wwwVIaCPA

The 1981 Listening Post - Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be the One

 Robert Gordon - Are You Gonna Be The One

#41

By Scott Von Doviak

1981 Housekeeping

Robert Gordon

Are You Gonna Be the One

Genre: Rockabilly Revival

Allen’s Rating: 4 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Highlights:

Someday, Someway

Look Who’s Blue

Lover Boy

Do you love a classic rockabilly sound filtered through tinny ‘80s production? No? Me either. Robert Gordon has a voice – it’s a voice you’ve heard before if you’re familiar with Elvis Presley. Gordon pretty much nicked the King’s vocal stylings wholesale. But he’s not the only one, and I can imagine Gordon’s early albums with Link Wray deliver more of an old school rockabilly kick than this slick collection does. You know “Someday, Someway” from Marshall Crenshaw, though Gordon recorded it first and had a regional hit in New York with it. It’s an OK rendition that never really soars, which means it fits right in with the rest of these songs. “Look Who’s Blue” is one of the better Elvis ripoffs, and it’s probably fun to see Gordon do it live. I don’t want to hate on this guy, but a song called “Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die” needs to be a lot nastier and Cramps-like than what we get here. For my taste, anyway. “Lover Boy” is another decent Elvis soundalike, but again, the production just grates. At least it’s a short album – not even half an hour in its original version. The version on Spotify has a bunch of bonus tracks, but life’s too short.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4D2rpGX0XEXB74ZRWbJY12?si=z6kyLb9oSuyWlBjbzgKKeg

The 1980 Listening Post - Daryl Hall & John Oates - Voices

Daryl Hall & John Oates - Voices

#472

by Scott Von Doviak

July 29 1980

Day Hall & John Oates

Voices

Genre: Pop/Blue-Eyed Soul with a dash of New Wave

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Allen’s Highlights:

How Does It Feel to Be Back?

United State

Kiss Is On My List

You’ve Lost that Lovin’ Feelin’ 

You Make My Dreams

Scott’s Highlights:

You Make My Dreams (Come True)

Kiss on My List

United State

Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear the Voices)

Here we have one of the first “rock” albums I bought with my own money, circa eighth grade. (I think the first was Kiss Destroyer, but I was more into comedy albums back then.) Relistening to it for this review was one of those weird déjà vu experiences you only get with music you listened to over and over until you stopped for…decades. I haven’t heard some of these songs for more than 35 years, but they came back to me quickly. This is clean, crisp, well-constructed pop music, state of the art for the era, and a lot of it holds up even if it’s not much to my taste these days. Of course there are the hits that still haunt supermarkets to this day, “Kiss on My List” and “You Make My Dreams (Come True),” which remains a perfect, irresistible pop tune. There’s the requisite cover, “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” which is well-sung but pretty rote, as well as being a song I never loved in the first place. There’s also a “covered,” a song made more popular by someone else, “Everytime You Go Away,” which became an obnoxiously unavoidable MTV hit for Paul Young a few years later. 

Weirdly, Voices isn’t front-loaded with the hits as was the style at the time. Granted, the opener “How Does It Feel to Be Back” was the first single and they probably had high hopes for it, but it barely cracked the charts. It’s pleasant enough, with Beatlesque harmonies and a Warren Zevon-ish guitar part. “Big Kids” is a stab at New Wave with a fun chorus, “United State” is as punky as they get, which isn’t very, but I could hear it on a Blondie album and I can’t think of another song that includes the word expatriate. “Hard to Be in Love with You” is catchy enough, “Gotta Lotta Nerve (Perfect Perfect)” is doo-wop/New Wave fusion, “Africa” is not the Toto song, and if I listened closer to the lyrics it’s probably quite problematic, but it’s got a nice dose of sleazy sax. Album closer “Diddy Doo Wop (I Hear the Voices)” is about as weird as H&O get – the inner monologue of a Son of Sam type on the loose in bad old New York. I’m glad I got an excuse to revisit this one, because I doubt I ever would have done it on my own.

https://open.spotify.com/album/4LniALl9S6YedTFdiZWOMS?si=JA-eUAdxTx-94VXJOXUE-Q

The 1980 Listening Post - Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles

 Echo & the Bunnymen - Crocodiles

#298

by Scott Von Doviak

Echo & The Bunnymen

Crocodiles

Genre: Post-Punk/New Wave/Goth 

Allen’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Scott’s Rating: 3.75 out of 5 

Highlights: 

Do It Clean 

Crocodiles 

Rescue 

All That Jazz 

If (like me) you’re only familiar with the later, lush Goth hits by Echo & the Bunnymen, their debut album may take you by surprise. The Goth element is still there, mostly thanks to Ian McCulloch’s vocals and generally dark lyrics, but Crocodiles is a much more lean and spare outing, closer to post-punk, with the bright, biting guitar sound associated with that genre. It’s not all gloom and doom, either – the album’s highlight is the rollicking “Do It Clean,” which is almost ‘60s garage rock. The sound is consistent, but the songwriting is not, with “Crocodiles” and “Rescue” standing out amid more pedestrian offerings. “All That Jazz” offers a sign of things to come, with Will Sergeant defining a certain style of ‘80s guitar that would be oft-imitated, particularly by British rock bands. An album I probably never would have listened to without this project, but I’m glad I did.

https://open.spotify.com/album/44aVVevMGKS4q6nWXbELpP?si=ek66YW3CTjuzUH4OV_vgYQ