#256
June 1981 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY
The Mighty Wah!
Nah=Poo - The Art of Bluff
Genre: New Wave
5 out of 5 (Yeah. I was surprised, too, but there isn’t a bad track on this thing)
Highlights:
Other Boys
Mission Impossible
Someday
The Seven Thousand Names of Wah!
Seven Minutes to Midnight
That genre is misleading.
This is what you get if The Alarm was fronted by Adam Ant and only covered what they thought were U2 songs and then forecast the coming of Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Now, that sounds reductive and pithy but it’s spot on and sort of terrific.
You know me, I love me some similes. But this is the sound of the 80s writ perfectly.
Now, that’s just side one. Because side two opens with a blazing rock instrumental called “The Seven Thousand Names of Wah!” Which is like the opening of a concert set that pulsates into and with “Sleeepp”. The inclusion of “Everybody’s Talkin’” at the tend is genius.
With a better name and certainly a better album title it’s possible that we all really know this record as an equal to, say, Boy or a peer of Declaration.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/nah-poo-the-art-of-bluff/1525268206
