The 1985 Listening Post - Quarterflash - Back Into Blue

Quarterflash - Back Into Blue

#32

1985 Housekeeping

Quarterflash

Back Into Blue

Genre: Pop Rock

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Walking on Ice

Caught in the Rain

Talk to Me

The bouncy New Wave opener, “Walking On Ice” is an almost welcome piece of confection which is like a replacement for Pat Benatar who decided to forgo rock in favor of a softer, more mature sound. 

But, New Wave is so early 80s and the band never really manages to sound like anything more than a montage song provider for an 80s teen flick, “Caught in the Rain” is a perfect example. Great chorus hook which works especially if you imagine laughing teens, standing at their lockers, laughing, wearing acid wash jean jackets and unironic fedoras over crimped hair.

The whole album is competent. It never really reaches any heights but it’s also never turgid or ugly. It’s a piece of 80s MOR pop.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/back-into-blue/580706230

The 1985 Listening Post - The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum

The Legendary Pink Dots - Asylum

#31

1985 Housekeeping

The Legendary Pink Dots

Asylum

Genre: Post-everything

2 out of 5

I got nothing. 

This is a double album by the band that brought us that obnoxiously semi-interesting album The Tower at the end of 84. Welp, here they are with…opera? Soundtrack to unmade movie? “Femme Mirage” sounds like it was written for a late 70s horror movie and then it turns into…a carousel New Wave track about a psychopath that could be included on…an 80s horror movie?

Side Two opens with what portends to be a neo-classical instrumental but devolves into standard sub-par no wave that we’ve heard from them before. And then devolves into random soundscapes that ends with a riff from “The Jets Song” from West Side Story. Why? I don’t know. I just want it to end...and it does with…classical meets prog meets…Disco? What?

The rest of it is just indulgent people with a lot of studio time who couldn’t even find a way to be as inventive as Pink Floyd or Spirit. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/asylum/78372783

The 1985 Listening Post - The Big Sound Authority - An Inward Revolution

The Big Sound Authority - An Inward Revolution

#30

1985 Housekeeping

The Big Sound Authority

An Inward Revolution

Genre: Mod Revival 

4 out of 5

Highlights: 

A Bad Town

Loverama

Moving Heaven and Earth.

This House (Is Where Your Love Stands)

Disciples of Paul Weller make an album that sounds like it was inspired by Paul Weller. 

It’s fine, much of it is actually very good but take the best big band tracks from the Jam compilation Snap! and this pales in comparison. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J9UP3nJltU&list=PLFtXhl189dSYSX_MMhJ9iD0RoDbZAk7L-&index=1

The 1985 Listening Post - Rat at Rat R - Ameri$ide: Rock and Roll is Dead

Rat at Rat R - Ameri$ide: Rock and Roll is Dead

#29

1985 Housekeeping

Rat at Rat R

Ameri$ide: Rock and Roll is Dead (Long Live Rat at Rat R)

Genre: Noise Rock

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Assassin

This isn’t noise rock, much as it would like to classify itself as such. It’s actually more early stages screamo/emo/bordering on wannabe industrial. And I kind of love it. If Pearl Jam was more interested in, say, Swans, than being a jam band, it might sound like this. 

It bores into my brain in all the right ways. 

Upon reading I think I know why: It turns out this band has close ties to Glenn Branca. Now, I’d heard about Branca’s Guitarestra for years but had never actually heard it and, when I did, I was blown away. The Ascension is magical in it’s construction and execution. It was one of the first records I had never heard before but gave 5 stars to, and that’s a difficult feat. I didn’t know until I was the last few years old how much I love “noise rock” but I really do when it’s done well and I love Branca and this. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/amer%24ide-rock-n-roll-is-dead-long-live-rat-at-rat-r/586903300

The 1985 Listening Post - #28 1985 Housekeeping Naked Raygun All Rise Genre: Punk 3.75 out of 5 Highlights: Home of the Brave Knock Me Down What happens when you replace the rhythm section of your rather pedestrian punk band? You add a musicality that was previously missing. The snot nosed kid/angry protestor sound that would continue with bands like The Offspring & Against Me! is in full effect on songs like “Knock Me Down” but the jazzy stuff that I loved on Dead Kennedys’ “The Prey” and thought Black Flag kept missing is evidenced on “Mr. Gridlock” a commentary on traffic that, well, I could see blasting on the 405 today. The album gets awfully experimental on the second side and, tbh, boring as hell. Which is a shame as I was really enjoying their sound. https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-rise/1120330499

Naked Raygun - All Rise

#28

1985 Housekeeping

Naked Raygun

All Rise

Genre: Punk

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Home of the Brave

Knock Me Down

What happens when you replace the rhythm section of your rather pedestrian punk band? You add a musicality that was previously missing. The snot nosed kid/angry protestor sound that would continue with bands like The Offspring & Against Me! is in full effect on songs like “Knock Me Down” but the jazzy stuff that I loved on Dead Kennedys’ “The Prey” and thought Black Flag kept missing is evidenced on “Mr. Gridlock” a commentary on traffic that, well, I could see blasting on the 405 today. 

The album gets awfully experimental on the second side and, tbh, boring as hell. 

Which is a shame as I was really enjoying their sound. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-rise/1120330499

The 1985 Listening Post - Alan Merrill - Alan Merrill

Alan Merrill - Alan Merrill

#27

January 1985

Alan Merrill

Alan Merrill

Genre: Rock/Glam

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

She Rocks Me

Cold Cold September

Always Another Train

This is the guy who wrote “I Love Rock and Roll”. 

Really, that should be his entire legacy right there. I mean, you put that on your tombstone, right? That’s it. Mailbox money, buy some houses, enjoy life, right?

I guess not. 

“Hard Hearted Woman”, “Keep on Coming”: Foreigner lite. The rest is white boy wanna be soul rock, a sound that seems to be pervading the middle aged rocker at this time. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/never-pet-a-burning-dog/136714467

The 1985 Listening Post - Little River Band - Playing to Win

Little River Band - Playing to Win

#26

January 1985

Little River Band

Playing to Win

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Playing to Win

When Cathedrals Were White

I always think LRB is a country rock band because their name screams that. But, they aren’t, are they? Certainly not here, where each subsequent track sounds like they listened to Styx’s Kilgore and a LOT of latter day Yes and then, in a fever sweat, got in the studio. 

This isn’t hard to do but…this is better than The Net. 

There might be something wrong with me cuz, I actually like this album. They’ve abandoned their worst tendencies (that abysmal photo-funk of the last album) and moved heavily into Prog and, for me it works. In a way, songs like “Piece of the Dream” give a good indication of what prog would sound like in Billy Joel’s hands. 

Make of that what you will.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/playing-to-win-remastered/722225928

The 1985 Listening Post - John Hiatt - Warming Up to the Ice Age

John Hiatt - Warming Up to the Ice Age

#25

January 1985

John Hiatt

Warming Up to the Ice Age

4 out of 5

Genre: MOR Rock

Highlights:

The Crush

Warming Up to the Ice Age

I Got a Gun

Boy do I feel old listening to this. 

Maybe it’s because I’m in the waiting room of a doctor’s office and everyone walking through the door looks like they are 6 feet from the undertaker. Which is weird since this doc is the “dermatologist to the stars”. No kidding. A well known pop diva name dropped him in a People Magazine interview. 

I expected more youthful and vital people here. 

Oh yeah. John Hiatt. 

Big, clean, meticulous Soul Rock. 

Rock for the Oldies. A theme that is beginning to take shape in 1985.

Oh, and as the Elvis Costello duet cover of “Live a little, laugh a little” by The Spinners came on, the clientele of this office completely changed. 

I get it. (The office and the album)

It’s Stevie Ray, Huey Lewis, ZZ Top, John Fogerty...all fine, all aimed squarely at your father’s wallet. It’s the soundtrack to every bloated, CAA-packaged star driven, overwrought, unfunny comedy of the era...looking at you, Legal Eagles. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/warming-up-to-the-ice-age/560599059

The 1985 Listening Post - Mood Six - The Difference Is...

Mood Six - The Difference Is...

#24

January 1985

Mood Six

The Difference is…

Genre: Psychedelic Rock

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

It’s Your Life

For some bands the 60s just wouldn’t end. And this is one of those bands. Psychedelic Dream Pop that didn’t know that the genre peaked with Strawberry Alarm Clock by dint of there being a band named Strawberry Alarm Clock. 

Thing is, this sound will be revisited by a Brooklyn band twenty years later and that album would be one of my favorite of the decade. Nightmare of You by Nightmare of You is this but better. Skip ahead to that album to hear what this should sound like. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/cutting-edge-a-mood-six-anthology/277852362

The 1985 Listening Post - Gowan - Strange Animal

Gowan - Strange Animal

#23

January 1985

Gowan

Strange Animal 

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Guerilla Solider

(You’re a) Strange Animal

If Russell Mael of Sparks fronted Supertramp it would sound like this record. 

I was thinking to myself how much like Styx this could sound and then I read up and learned that Lawrence Gowan replaces Dennis DeYoung as Styx’s lead singer. 

So that not a surprise. And apparently they play “A Criminal Mind” in concert to this day. It’s okay. There’s better here. 

This is listenable prog-pop but it doesn’t do much to push the envelope. 

A little of Gowan goes a long way. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/strange-animal/431866166