The 1981 Listening Post - Chrome - Blood on the Moon

 Chrome - Blood on the Moon

#194

May 31 1981

Chrome

Blood on the Moon

Genre: Techno Psycho

3.25 out of 5 

Highlights:

Perfumed Metal

Well, Chrome, this is more like it.

If you take the swirling ambient instrumentation of Bowie’s Scary Monsters album and incorporated it into the minimalism of Helios Creed and Damon Edge, this is what it sounds like. 

Chrome will eventually let me down but that’s, I think, because the duo split up, Helios Creed basically telling Edge to off off and the backing section of The Stench Brothers also left. And that might have been the secret sauce. Because Edge, while putting out one very good record in 84 with Alliance, falters all over the place with later Chrome records. 

Ultimately, every track sounds alike and I think that’s the point. I don’t know that this album is actually supposed to be listened to as much as it’s supposed to be something that you spin in a dark, dank, BDSM club bar. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/blood-on-the-moon/296618883

The 1981 Listening Post - Peter Frampton - Breaking All the Rules

 Peter Frampton - Breaking All the Rules

#193

By Julia Talbot

May 14, 1981

Peter Frampton

Breaking All the Rules

Genre: Exhausted Resentment

Allen’s Rating: 1.5 out of 5

Julia’s Rating: 2 out of 5

Highlights: This album only has nine songs. Its peak position was number 89 on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart. I now am certain that I wouldn’t want to have dated Peter Frampton in 1981. 

 

I was so excited to broaden my admittedly limited Peter Frampton listening base by reviewing Breaking All the Rules. Frampton Comes Alive – while not on my personal top ten, is such a bright star. I was all poised to embrace late in life fandom. Well, it might happen one day but this yawn of album is not going to help.  But why? Why did a talented, on point artist of the era and a bunch of amazing session musicians produce such a sleepy album? 

I believe the answer lies in Brian Kushnir’s review on this site, of TOTO’s (January 1981) album, Turn Back. As Brian outlines, Turn Back nearly cost TOTO their band and here they are a mere five months after that album’s lukewarm public embrace/fuck you, with fully half the band reluctantly (and perhaps resentfully) session musician-ing it up for Frampton; playing a line-up of songs (that - wait for it), half of which had already been released in Brazil as promotional gimmick the previous year as the album Rise Up.  Aside from Frampton himself, the only musician listed as playing on both albums was John Regan, I think the rest of the gang were off doing better things post tour, so here we are with Frampton, Regan, half of TOTO and Arthur Stead on keyboards doing the best they can. Put it all together and it is a recipe for tired mediocrity and boy does it come through. 

 

On the other hand, maybe we expect too much from albums and/or the musicians who create them. We look to them to inspire, uplift and generally make us feel better about our tiny lives or in the very least provide a background or context to whatever the hell it is we are doing. My life has been punctuated by such moments. Would my life experiences or memories be as rich and multidimensional without the addition of a soundtrack of my picking but not one bit of my creation? I sort of doubt it. So, what does it mean when someone produces nine songs (one being a fairly meh cover of a completely excellent song, the Easybeats, Friday on My Mind) that are entirely forgettable if not interchangeable? All the familiar tropes are there in addition to a hint of a narrative arc- or perhaps I am imagining things. Listened to in order, this album is the story of a failed relationship – although given Frampton’s lyrics, I don’t blame the women who broke up with him, he sounds like a self-involved mess. Here’s a cheat sheet:

"Dig What I Say" – I’ve found a new love and boy is she hot. 

"I Don't Wanna Let You Go" - You are over me. I still think you are hot. You are making a big mistake. 

"Rise Up" - You have broken up with me. 

“Wasting the Night Away"- Our love was a complete sham, but I may have convinced you to sleep with me one last time. 

"Going to L.A."  - I regret saying that our love was a sham. I can be a better boyfriend.

"You Kill Me" – I am asking for a second chance. You are right, I didn’t understand you.

"Friday on My Mind" - Maybe I have moved on…. 

"Lost a Part of You" – I am sorry, I am too broken to date anyone.

"Breaking All the Rules" – Weird quasi-political song about humanity’s dystopian state of being.

During the recounting of this (I am assuming) blissfully short relationship we are wowed with lyrics like: 

“Put on some make-up baby dress up to kill

Dig what I'm saying cause it gives me a thrill

That's what I want to see, you know it's all for me” (Dig What I Say)

 

“When I love with you

All the things we plan to do

Now they tell me you've gone

Well it won't be for very long, baby” (I Don’t Want to Let You Go)

“Yesterday you called my name

Now you're gone and I'm insane

Seems I've made the same mistake again” (Going to L.A.)

“Hey baby, give me a break

I seem so frantic

It might be too late

I'm trying, trying to hard

Trying to see what's behind the façade” (You Kill Me)

“Oh, nobody helped me when I lost a part of you 

No one can help me through this crazy world but you” (Lost a Part of You)

Excuse me while I go make sure 1981 Peter Frampton never gets my phone number.

 

https://open.spotify.com/album/0eoiL2myrVme6wUkuKiAhs?si=jsDW6l6kQRq1buSf37OuYg 

The 1981 Listening Post - Toni Basil - Word of Mouth

 Toni Basil - Word of Mouth

#192

May 22 1981

Toni Basil

Word of Mouth

Genre: New Wave

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Nobody

Little Red Book

Mickey

Hangin’ Around

In the early 80s I remember seeing Easy Rider and marveling that Toni Basil was in it. Hadn’t she arrived, fully formed, out of the blue, an overnight sensation with “Mickey”? No. Toni had been kicking around, singing, dancing, choreographing, acting for a couple decades. 

And then, boom, that hit. 

That massive massive hit. 

Which, you probably know, was written by the team of China and Chapman.

But, did you know that the song was written for a British Power Pop group called Racey? That the song was called “Kitty”? 

No, you didn’t, huh? 

Should we consider her number one hit a “Requisite 80s cover”? 

Nah.

Cuz there’s also her cover of the Bacharach/David “Little Red Book” wherein it’s turned into classic 80s New Wave pop. 

And The Gerry Casale/Devo joint, “Be Stiff” which goes with the Mark Mothersbaugh “You Gotta Problem”, which goes with the Casale, “Space Girls” all of which answers the question of, “What would DEVO have sounded like if fronted by a woman? Umm..great?

Now…let’s talk about “Mickey”. Am I reading this wrong? “Now when you take me by the, who's ever gonna know

Every time you move, I let a little more show

There's something you can use, so don't say no, Mickey

So come on and give it to me anyway you can

Anyway you want to do it, I'll take it like a man”

Is she singing what I think she’s singing?

You go, Toni. 

And people were up in arms about WAP.

Toni’s going for Blondie’s New Wave title on this record and she hits it out of the park.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lteaYPb3L8k

The 1981 Listening Post - Barclay James Harvest - Turn of the Tide

Barclay James Harvest - Turn of the Tide 

#191

May 1981

Barclay James Harvest

Turn of the Tide

Genre: MOR

3.75 out of 5

Highlights:

Back to the Wall

Highway for Fools

In Memory of the Martyrs

I’ll admit it. I have never heard of these guys. But they were putting out records for more than a decade at this point.

The best way to put this is: This album sounds like Middle of the Road music made by a band named Barclay James Harvest. 

If you ran a program to determine your earnest album oriented mid-tempo anthemic 70s-turning into the 80s with synths band name, there is a 74% chance the computer spits out “Barclay James Harvest”.

The fact that it is NOT southern rock only proves my point but “Highway for Fools” & “Death of the City” come damned close. In fact, it proves the nexus of Southern Rock and Prog. I mean that in a good way.

But, Allen, how is it? 

It’s exactly what you expect from this kind of band. The easy near-California groove of the “Back to the Wall” suggest Weak Tea Eagles. 

What came first, Toto or these guys? They are playing in the same sandbox here. And you know what? There’s room in this sandbox.

I enjoyed this more than I expected to. Especially the more proggy GeneStyx stuff. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/turn-of-the-tide-bonus-track-edition/1442806030

The 1981 Listening Post - Grace Jones - Nightclubbing

 Grace Jones - Nightclubbing

#190

By Tom Mott

Grace Jones

Nightclubbing

Genre: Post-Disco Art

Allen’s Rating: 3 out of 5

Tom’s Rating: 4.75 out of 5

Highlights

Pull Up to the Bumper

Nightclubbing

I've Seen that Face Before (Libertango)

There is a certain dance club sound from 1980-81 that I absolutely love. Grace Jones, Tom Tom Club, Robert Palmer, Talking Heads, David Bowie, Blondie, Lizzy Mercier Descloux. It's a mix of funk, post-punk, post-disco, reggae, techno, and new wave. It's super sexy. It's cool. It's a club I want to be in, dancing into oblivion.

Chris Blackwell produced this and has a lot to do with the overall vibe. Sly & Robbie have a major role too. But Grace Jones was heavily involved and she needs to be talked about more. She should be idolized and tributed. She paved the way for so many later artists. This album was recorded in the same sessions that produced her 1980 album Warm Leatherette. These are the leftovers, but it's an even better album. It plays like a Greatest Hits album. It's smart and fun and idiosyncratic. It's Bjork before Bjork.

Most of the songs are covers, but that's not the right term because--like Devo reconstructing Satisfaction--she completely remolds them. Half the time, I didn't even realize they were covers. Of songs I love! 

Something else about this album--that something Stephen Lam mentioned about another album--it's full of space. She gives the music room to breath.

If you like Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, and Fame/Fashion/Ashes-to-Ashes Bowie, you probably already know this album. If not, give it a listen! 

WALKING IN THE RAIN (written by George Young the younger brother of Angus and Malcolm) plays out like Barry White 2.0 via Bladerunner.

PULL UP TO THE BUMPER is a dance-floor filler with an absolutely killer bass. Reminds me of L.A. apartment dance parties in the 90s. Co-written by Jones.

USE ME took me half way through to realize it's the Bill Withers song! In Jones's hands, it's a new song.

NIGHTCLUBBING is an Iggy Pop cover. Yes! I want to go nightclubbing with you! 

ART GROUPIE has a crazy sound. Guitar? Bass? What is that sound! She wrote this one too. Ohmigod I'm crushing on Grace Jones right now. 

I'VE SEEN THAT FACE BEFORE (LIBERTANGO) was cowritten by Astor Piazzolla the tango composer. It's lithe, lilting and sexy. I will forever associate this song with Emmanuelle Seigner in Frantic (Polanski). Can we please all move to France and live like Serge Gainsbourg?

FEEL UP is a groovy little world music mash-up by Jones. We talk about Malcolm McClaren (Duck Rock) and Paul Simon (Graceland), but Jones was right there fusing genres and beats from around the world. Magical song.

DEMOLITION MAN is perhaps the most infamous song from the album, due to the bizarre & fascinating music video. In my opinion not the strongest track, but around two-minutes in, it lock into a great hypno-groove. 

I'VE DONE IT ALL AGAIN is a Marianne Faithfull song, and a lovely change of pace. This is a real beauty. A song to wake up to after a night of drinking and debauchery. I'm in.

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx7gRrgruAU&list=PLlvn8uktX5Lt4MKurBg5rbaDpiobndxLr

The 1981 Listening Post - Toyah - Anthem

 Toyah - Anthem

#189

May 22 1981

Toyah

Anthem

Genre: New Wave

3.5 out of 5

Highlights:

Jungles of Jupiter

We Are

After two very strong and weird records it was really only a matter of time before Toyah, who always sounded like she was trying to be a more accessible Kate Bush, would shoot for the pop charts. 

Listening to her sing about how she wants to “be free” of things that lock her down like..school? I am reminded of how Charlie XCX would mine the same tropes 3 decades later. From High School Confidential to Toyah to Charlie…kids are just really oppressed by school. 

As much as she decries what makes a “Pop Star” she also seems to be shooting for that status. I don’t begrudge her doing either of those things. I just wish the songs were better.

She is tripling down on her theater-weirdness on stuff like “Elocution Lesson” and it’s ugly and oh so early 80s. At the time this album was Toyah’s biggest selling record. And I can not imagine a time where people queued up to buy this but, damn, I’m happy that that’s who we as a music consuming public, were. If but for a short time. 

Toyah falls into that Bowie/Bush nexus but she isn’t as wistful as the latter or, really, as creatively able as the former (who was a master at stealing other people’s ideas and making them into something terrific). So, she comes across as a bit chiding and, to be honest, she reminds me at times of Wendy O. Williams, vocally.  

https://music.apple.com/us/album/anthem/1524088687

The 1981 Listening Post - Elton John - The Fox

 Elton John - The Fox

#188

May 20 1981

Elton John

The Fox

Genre: Elton John

1.75 out of 5

I’ve seen Elton John in concert. There was absolutely no reason for this except that the girl I was dating really wanted to see the Elton John/Billy Joel tour and I was wooing. 

Elton was blown off the stage by Billy who just seemed to be having a good time. 

I also sat through that Elton biopic from last year. You know what? Oh, it’s awful, but it also has a couple great moments of Ken Russell inspired surrealism in a musical. 

And there was a point where I almost went ahead with a complete Elton retrospective and I would have done it but we were moving and I just got lost in that experience. But I was completely mesmerized by just how great some of those early albums were. 

This is not one of those. This is 21 at 33 John. This is the middle of his tailspin of mediocrity. I’m not sure he really ever recovers. But, he keeps plodding on.
What does it say that the most engaging track is not written by John? It’s by Jean-Paul Dreau and Gary Osborne (who co-wrote most of this record with John). And while, “Nobody Wins” is probably the best song here, it’s the production that saves it not the song writing. 

The first part of “Carla/Etude/Fanfare/Chloe” is lovely, though. And it makes me wonder, did John ever do an instrumental classical album? You don’t really need to answer unless it’s really good. Which this album is not. He gets close to, say, “The Bitch is Back” on “Heels of the Wind” but that’s just pilfering his own work. 

https://music.apple.com/us/album/the-fox-remastered/1440661861

The 1981 Listening Post - X - Wild Gift

 X - Wild Gift

#187

By Craig Fitzgerald

X

Wild Gift

Genre: LA Punk

Allen’s Rating: 5 out of 5

Craig’s Rating: 5 out of 5

Highlights:

The Once Over Twice

We’re Desperate

Universal Corner

In This House That I Call Home

Some Other Time

White Girl

Year 1

No band other than the Beatles churned out four records as perfect as X did in this short a span of time. 

Not U2. 

Not the Rolling Stones. 

Not The Who. 

Not the Ramones. 

Not The Clash. 

Maybe the Monkees, and I wouldn’t call those “perfect” records, because there were some forgettable loser tracks on every one of those albums. 

This is the second record in that unbroken chain of ideal rock and roll music, and depending on what day you ask, this one is my favorite, making it my favorite record of all 1981 in toto, and maybe my favorite record of the entire 1980s. It’s definitely the one that I play more than anything else. 

Los Angeles is a really good record, and it would’ve been easy for this band to fall into a sophomore slump, but there is NO TIME between the release of Los Angeles and Wild Gift. Los Angeles came out in April of 1980 and Wild Gift is recorded in March of ’81, with Ray Manzerek still working away at the knobs in the control room. In Penelope Spheris’s Decline of Western Civilization, which was released in December of 1980, the band plays “We’re Desperate” three months before they ever committed to it acetate. 

All of this is to say that you almost need to look at Los Angeles and Wild Gift as a double album. Loads of these songs were in the live catalog before they ever stepped inside a studio. This entire record sounds like a well-rehearsed assault from the opening track to “Year 1,” that unabashedly fun, chorus- and bridge-less 1:18 gasser at the end. 

Everything is bigger and louder and fuller on the next album Under the Big Black Sun. That’s a great record, too, with some of my favorite X songs of all time, but it definitely sounds more produced. This one still sounds like it was made by accident, as if someone just happened to have a really good set of mics at a particularly good set at The Masque. 

Billy Zoom is as good as he was ever going to be on this album. If you’re a guitar player, try playing the riff on “We’re Desperate.” You’ll BE desperate. Yes, Billy is a great lead player, but his ultimate skills are as a human metronome, and one of the best rhythm players and riff-maker-uppers of all time. It’s all on display here. If there was any guitar player I could play like, it would be him. The way he palm mutes these killer riffs during the lyrics in “Some Other Time,” and then just opens them up to let them ring at full volume in between makes me dizzy.

This is why this band works:

Any of John Doe or Exene Cervenka’s songs could easily slip into singer-songwriter/poetry slam territory: 

Beautiful walls are closing in

Looking at you, you're having a nightmare

Stumble over tombstone shoes

I reach to surround you

But it's too soon

But with Billy and DJ Bonebrake at the helm, “In This House That I Call Home” rattles down the tracks like the Yankee Cannonball at Canobie Lake. Yeah, fun, but you might get shot out into the parking lot at any moment, too.

And look at Side 2 here:

In This House That I Call Home

Some Other Time

White Girl

Beyond and Back

Back 2 The Base

When Our Love Passed Out on the Couch

Year 1

That’s a full album for anyone else. Not this band. You have to FLIP THE RECORD OVER to hear those songs. It’s an embarrassment of riches. 

But alas, this band is the Freaks and Geeks of 1980s rock and roll. Critics loved it. Fans loved it. Nobody else did. It spent five weeks on the Billboard 200, peaking at 165 on in June. You can see why, though when it’s up against classics like “Mistaken Identity” by Kim Carnes, and “Long Distance Voyager” by the Moody Blues. 

What the fuck.

https://open.spotify.com/album/2ECSVdWu5RCvYqIRGA0pyR?si=SdlLhBShT-KyYGm_1Zlh_g

The 1981 Listening Post - The Wanderers - Only Lovers Left Alive

 The Wanderers - Only Lovers Left Alive

#186

May 18 1981 LISTENING POST DISCOVERY

The Wanderers

Only Lovers Left Alive

Genre: GarageRockPunk

4.5 out of 5

Highlights:

No Dreams

Take Them and Break Them

Ready to Snap

Sold Your Soul for Fame

There’ll Be No Tomorrow

Requisite 80s cover: “The Times They Are a Changin’”. In the context here, of dystopia and governmental oppression it’s stellar. It’s like the double A Side of My Chemical Romance’s “Desolation Row”. Unlike others who cover Dylan, it’s when the punks get their hands on his anger that they really get to the core. This is a dynamite track, right where it belongs. In the middle of this record. 

Before American Idiot foisted it’s thematically conceptual punk opus on the world, Stiv Bators and the guys from Sham 69 got together and made this laser focused punk concept album about a kid who discovers that who really controls the world and it’s everything his solo album wasn’t. It’s a punk Quadrophenia. I can’t imagine that any punks wanted to hear…um…string and synth-horn arrangements…but man is it dynamite. It’s a garage record with an eye on theatricality. Like his solo album it exposes Bators’ more pop impulses. He wanted to make music that people wanted to buy, not just be a punk relic. But is there anything more “punk” than being against authority, writing an album about it and blowing apart the expectations of what “punk” is or was? The Wanderers sound like they could stand on the same stage as The Ramones and, at first glance you would think, yeah, that’s what they sound like. But, there’s so much more in here. 

The production is way too much, too compressed and too much effects on…everything, but, this album delivers. There are so many other sounds in here from Love and Rockets to Graham Parker, Bators mixed punk tropes and kicked them into the 80s. He was way ahead of the curve and I’m pretty sure he doesn’t get any of the respect he deserves. 

But he does deserve it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcQli8zHcI

The Tigers - Savage Music

 The Tigers - Savage Music

1980 Housekeeping

The Tigers

Savage Music

Genre: New Power Wave Pop

4.25 out of 5

Highlights:

Fall For You

Jack It Up

Gone Like You

From their website, The Tigers had a bit of wind in their sails at the beginning of the 80s, great management, a record deal, US and UK tours. 

So, why has no one heard of them? 

Maybe cuz they didn’t have a hit in the waning days of Power Pop. 

“Promises, Promises” sounds like it wants to be a hit, but like the Barreracudas song of the same name, it doesn’t really have the juice to get on anyone’s charts.

When they get their New Wave ska down, they channel latter day Clash and bring some heft (“Ice-Cold Fulham”) and they try the same trick on the title track but that one is a bit more snarky harsh and not something I wanna tap my toes to. “Religions for the Hungry” mis the tune The Clash forgot how to write.

Alvin Clark of The Monochrome Set produced this so, maybe that’s why it’s so good. 

It’s good that we end 1980 on this note. A year that was defined by the skinny tie sound. A sound that will result in a backlash and hangover in 1981.

https://music.apple.com/us/album/savage-music/1439928405