The 1985 Listening Post - American Music Club - The Restless Stranger

American Music Club - The Restless Stranger

#22

January 1985

American Music Club

The Restless Stranger

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Room Above the Club

Points of Desire

Apparently the band hates this album. Why? I’m not sure. It’s perfectly acceptable slo-core Americana. It’s a bit on the depressive side, like if Joy Division was a roots rock band. This is the sludgy sound of grunge in its infancy. 

I think I enjoyed this more than the band does. There’s some Nick Cave in here but with more melody, Also, a touch of Leonard Cohen and Psychedelic Furs. There are some real clunkers here like “When Your Love is Gone”, but as a first effort I give it some props. 

I look forward to more from these guys. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rn6_MH70OTw

The 1985 Listening Post - Linda Thompson - One Clear Moment

Linda Thompson - One Clear Moment

#21

January 1985

Linda Thompson

One Clear Moment

Genre: Rock

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Can’t Stop the Girl

Take Me On the Subway

There are two albums that anyone who wants to be taken seriously as a music aficionado must hear: I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight and Shoot Out the Lights by Richard and Linda Thompson. Marvelous.

By himself, while I appreciate his appreciation for great pop songs (Richard’s version of “Oops I Did it Again” is excellent, I find his solo stuff leaves me cold. 

So, I wasn’t expecting much from Linda’s solo outing…sum of the parts and all. 

Surprise. 

This reminds me a lot of Christine McVie’s album from last year. Or Kirsty MaColl. Assured. Smart. A 70s chanteuse unafraid to update her sound for a new era and an experimental artist willing to push boundaries (“Take Me On the Subway”). The album gets a bit treacly toward the end and starts to sound like she’s auditioning to be a songwriter for others. But, for the most part it’s a perfectly pleasant outing. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/one-clear-moment/178533440

The 1985 Listening Post - David Hasselhoff - Night Rocker

David Hasselhoff - Night Rocker

#20

January 1985

David Hasselhoff

Night Rocker

1.25 out of 5

Genre: Pop Rock

David Hasselhoff is not a “Rocker”. He doesn’t Rock during the day. He doesn’t Rock at Night. 

If you put Rick Springfield and David Cassidy and Englebert Humperdink and Robert Goulet and the E Street Band in a Vitamix, puree at the highest speed, pour it through a mesh sieve, throw the pulp away, and put the strained liquid in a highball glass, then add a LOT of ice to further dilute it, that might come close to The Hoff. 

Putting him on the cover with an Aria Pro II ZZ (which I bet he can’t play) on the hood of a Pontiac Firebird is such a bullshit marketing ploy cuz there is nothing rocking on this album. He has no soul, as his choice of the Ray Dahrouge garbage-lyric "Any Kind of Love at All" will show. Go ahead. Listen to it. It’s horrible. 

For the curious, there is a pre-Alanis producing Glen Ballard penned song, “No Way to Be In Love”, which could be a middling Power Popper in anyone else’s hands but is forced and terrible here and “All the Right Moves” which sounds like a shitty take on a Martin Briley song. 

Because…

That’s what it is. You can almost hear Briley singing this and making it not suck. The Briley demo is in the comments. And it shows just how awful The Hoff is. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/night-rocker/76232308

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/all-the-right-moves-demo-version/303291099?i=303291305

The 1985 Listening Post - C Cat Trance - Khamu

C Cat Trance - Khamu

#19 

January 1985

C Cat Trance

Khamu

3.25 out of 5

Does this qualify as “trance” music? Is it early “House”? It’s not hypnotic enough to put me in a state and the vocals are so leather club growly that I find it off putting. “Barefoot Doctor” plays like Soft Cell if Soft Cell was a leathercore band. And then the moodscapes of “The New Hassan” bring to mind Laurie Anderson’s “Excellent Birds” but there’s no wit, no personality, it’s just a music bed. 

Some of it is evocative(“(Screaming) to Be With You”), much of it is pointless “Rattling Ghosts” or indulgent (“The Old Man”) or vaguely theatrical (read:Off-Off-Broadway) (“Simply Helen”).

Anyway. 

YMMV

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/khamu-she-sleep-walks/204535327

The 1985 Listening Post - Immaculate Fools - Hearts of Fortune

Immaculate Fools - Hearts of Fortune

#18

January 1985

Immaculate Fools

Hearts of Fortune

Genre: Synth-Rock

3.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Nothing Means Nothing

So, this seems to be another of the children of Psychedelic Furs. The lead singer actually pulls off a pretty Butler and the band is a reasonable facsimile but he also manages to call to mind Bowie and, thereby, drawing the straightest line between those two artists. 

I like that sound so I don’t mind this, not in the least. If this album was recorded by a hipster band from Brooklyn in 2013 it would be hailed as a nostalgic throwback. But at the time it came out this sound was on the wane so it’s no surprise that not much came of Immaculate Fools. If this is a sound you like I can’t not recommend it. It’s derivative but earnest, boring but never tiresome. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/hearts-of-fortune/1455480399

The 1985 Listening Post - The Pontiac Brothers - Doll Hut

The Pontiac Brothers - Doll Hut

#17

January 1985

The Pontiac Brothers

Doll Hut

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Work With Me

It’s Alright at Home

Out in the Rain

How lucky are we? Two Pontiac Brothers albums in one month! There’s got to be a story here but I’m too lazy to look it up.

Some tracks are repeated, like the country boogie “Straight and Narrow” or the Crampy “Almost Human”, which I like more here than I did on the last album. Only…this time…while the Stones adulation is even more obvious, it kind of works. The band is tighter and Matt Simon’s vocals seem to be hewing closer to the Westerberg than the Jagger, although he’s obviously sung along to every single Stones album. 

Much better follow up, Pontiacs. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/doll-hut-fiesta-en-la-biblioteca/498661169

The 1985 Listening Post - Husker Du - New Day Rising

Husker Du - New Day Rising

#16

January 31 1985

Husker Du

New Day Rising

Genre: Punk/Alt

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

New Day Rising

Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hell

I Apologize

Terms of Psychic Warfare

The blood letting on the opening title track suggests Husker Du isn’t finished with the opus they started on Zen Arcade. 

The production on New Day Rising is lacking but that’s part of its charm. It’s a sonic assault where the vocals (and everything else) are slashing through the thicket of guitars which themselves are an army of machetes engaged in a battle for the listener’s soul. Hart’s terrifically cinematic “Girl Who Lives on Heaven Hill” is a great example of this as is “If I Told You”. 

There are weak points. All provided by Mould, of course. “Perfect Example” and “59 Times the Pain” sound like he took some musical beds and went into the studio at 3AM, worried that someone might change his mind, he set all the mics at the wrong level and recorded his vocals directly on to the tape so they couldn’t be erased. It’s almost as if he’ proud of how unintelligible and muddied they are. 

It’s “Terms of Psychic Warfare” & “Books About UFOS” that cements it for me: Hart is Dylan to Mould’s…whatever Mould says he is. Bob is thrashing away and one song bleeds into the next but Grant is trying something different on his tracks. This one track could also be Ian Hunter. or Neil Young. All of them draped and dripping in punk rock robes. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/new-day-rising/515394889

The 1985 Listening Post - Donnie Iris - No Muss...No Fuss...

Donnie Iris - No Muss...No Fuss...

#15 

January 30 1985

Donnie Iris

No Muss…No Fuss…

Genre: Power Pop

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Injured in the Game of Love

Follow That Car

Headed for a Breakdown

Oh, man…I didn’t think anyone was gonna ever write guitar rock aimed at roller skate rink Saturday Nights ever again. It’s a truly moribund style at this point and Donnie doesn’t really do much more than write the songs and sing the songs and play the songs. 

You know that almost anonymous flat 80s sound that Bleachers mined so well a couple years ago? That’s this record. Iris could be anyone (except that singing is really not his forte) and anyone could’ve sung these songs. 

Instead of sounding like his own man, Iris comes across as a John Cafferty wannabe, which means he’s a carbon of Southside Johnny who patterned himself after Springsteen. “Riding Thunder” and “You’re My Serenity” are prime examples of the Springsteenian style. Perfectly fine but it’s not like you wanna fire up the Mustang and take to the roads. You don’t even wanna unplug the EV for Donnie. 

Poor Donnie. 

It’s when he really lets loose and finds his inner Waybill on “Follow That Car” that the album really rips and it just takes off from there. 

Iris is good at what he does, I’m just not sure there is an audience for this, either in 85 or now. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlBcpZmkrtw&list=PLYmiWpmQzpNP_DqulLWR1MYnUs941DBkn&index=1

The 1985 Listening Post - Yello - Stella

Yello - Stella

#14

January 29 1985

Yello

Stella

Genre: SynthPop

4.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Desire

Oh Yeah

Stalakdrama

Koladi-ola

Domingo

For me, Yello has been a rule of diminishing returns. Loved their first one, not so much the second, less the 3rd. So, I wasn’t looking forward to this. 

Unlike the last one this sounds a littttttttle less like Sparks and more like…Right Said Fred? Well, Fred will sound like them. Traveling far afield to total club rock, you know you’ve heard at least one track. 

“Oh, Yeah”. 

It was EVERYwhere in 85 and 86. Entire movie sequences seem to have been designed around it and you know what? It’s excellent. Like mainstream pop Art of Noise. It’s excessive and gross and obnoxious and that’s what it’s supposed to be. It’s the opposite of strip club music. But it is objectifying. Only, instead of objectifying women, it seems to either want to objectify cars or bodybuilders. 

“Stalakdrama” is an epic that is what happens if Jean Michel Jarre gets drunk and tries to write a Wagnerian Opera and “Koladi-ola” is a psychic breakdown of a hoedown. 

There are so many twists and turns on this record and all of it is unexpected. And kind of great.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/stella-remastered-2005/1152680210

The 1985 Listening Post - David Lee Roth - Crazy from the Heat

David Lee Roth - Crazy from the Heat

#13

January 28 1985

David Lee Roth

Crazy From the Heat

Genre: Rock

4 out of 5

Highlights:

Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody

California Girls

So, we did The Honeydrippers. This is the flip side. Whereas Plant is a rock singer pretending to be a crooner, Roth is 100% lounge singer cruiser pretending to be a rock singer and that’s why Van Halen worked. Plain and simple. Diamond Dave was all about the show. Glitz and glam. And that might have been counter to Eddie’s pure classical mentality. Maybe that’s why they bought so much. Also, maybe cuz Eddie’s a drunk and Dave is out of his fucking mind.

This shouldn’t work, should it? 

It’s remarkable that it does. 

The truth is, the two big singles are the ones that work best. You’ve heard them. You like them. They’re gonna make you smile. 

https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/crazy-from-the-heat-ep/302058636