The 1981 Listening Post - The Cretones - Snap! Snap!

 The Cretones - Snap! Snap!

#725

1981 Housekeeping

The Cretones

Snap! Snap!

Genre: Rock

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Hanging on to No One

Swinging Divorcee

This is listed as “New Wave” but it isn’t. It’s a bunch of rock songs that span genres, thereby encompassing none of them. 

Mark Goldenberg writes catchy and sometimes hilarious tunes, like “Swinging Divorcee”. They aren’t reinventing the wheel here. It’s pub rock of the sort that becomes a calling card for songsmiths. 

And that must have worked as these guys went on to varied successes, writing for Linda Rondstadt or composing TV show themes. 

This is an odd record inasmuch as it doesn’t really seem to belong to 1981. And yet, it has its roots in solid Power Pop but it wants to rock out. I feel like they are a few years ahead of everybody else and that leaves them out of the mainstream while writing solid tunes. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4l0LdPBJcg

The 1980 Listening Post - The Cretones - Thin Red Line

 The Cretones - Thin Red Line

March 1980

The Cretones

Thin Red Line

Genre: Power Pop

3.25 out of 5

Should we make “Real Love” a highlight? It’s a good tune and it was a slight hit but…I don’t know. There are better tunes on this. Like “Everyone’s Mad at Katherine”, which has a sort of New York Boardwalk feel to it. 

Three of the tracks here, “Mad Love”, “Justine” and “Cost of Love” would find themselves on Linda Ronstadt’s mad Love album. They are better there. She had an ear, man. 

I would say pass on Cretones’ versions of these tunes and go listen to Linda.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=io-ZU8Xmr7c