The 1980 Listening Post - Sector 27 - Sector 27

 Sector 27 -  Sector 27

 #443

November 11 1980

Sector 27 (Tom Robinson)

Sector 27

Genre: New Wave

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Invitation: What Have We Got to Lose

Not Ready

Can’t Keep Away

Few albums have sounded like crossing the transom from 70s punk to 80s experimentation than this one. I readily admit that Tom Robinson is someone I have no experience with but I do have deep memories of reading about/following/listening to works by Steve Lillywhite, the wunderkind who is partially responsible for the framework of that entire decade. And he produces this album. Boy, is it something. I am reminded of Peter Gabriel throughout but not in that cold, paternal, distancing way. Instead, I feel more engulfed in the passion that Tom and the rest are bringing to the fray. It’s like if David Bowie was a band and not…David Bowie. 

Weirdly, and flying in the face of my theory, is that, most of the album is co-written by Robinson and Jo Burt and those songs don’t hold up as strongly as the solo Robinson joints. 

Personal favorite is the B-52s/XTC hybrid “”Can’t Keep Away”. But I also appreciate the Mod-Revival of “Total Recall”, although I don’t think it plays to Lillywhite’s strengths. 

Ugly album cover. Pretty terrific little spinner. 

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGjCzjANmig&list=PLlvn8uktX5LvJYRAyTHmOrNBKYATktkxH

The 1984 Listening Post - Tom Robinson Band - War Baby - Hope and Glory

Tom Robinson Band - War Baby - Hope and Glory

#10

January 13 1984

Tom Robinson Band

 War Baby (Hope and Glory)

2 out of 5

Remember Dana Carvey’s “Choppin’ Broccoli” skit? To me, that is embodied in “Cabin Boy”, a song filled with “Let’s show what we can do!” bullshit noodling that all it does is highlight the insipidness of the lyric “I wanna be your cabin boy all night!” Ugh.

I’m not sure I’ve ever heard a record that wanted to sound like Peter Gabriel as hard as this one does. Thing is, at times it sounds like where Peter was going to go in a couple years so…chicken and the egg. Did Robinson build on what Peter was doing and take it to this place only to be usurped by the more radio friendly So in 86? Or was it just alchemy? Was So a natural progression for Gabriel building on his own sound and the tropes being practiced by the likes of Duran Duran and Tears for Fears, et al? 

None of that really matters. I’m just trying to get through this perplexing and plodding New Romantic rock version of “Ricky Don’t Lose that Number” and the rest of this perfectly fine but unexciting record. What’s funny is that it’s the title track that sounds like it’s biting on Steely Dan more than the cover. So, Tom is influenced enough by them to a) cover them and b) ape their sound on another track. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/war-baby-hope-glory/1439347381