Permanent Waves #13
You know it's more than just some new sensation!
Welcome, or welcome back, to Permanent Waves, a weekly expedition into the power pop (and beyond!) of the year 1980.
Apologies for the delay in this week’s update, but to make it up I’ve got some extra goodies coming down the pike— watch this space! We’re kicking April off with a bang: eight albums on the docket this week, with more starpower between ‘em than I’ve seen yet this year! Let’s mindset.
The Beach Boys - Keepin’ the Summer Alive
I dunno man, something about hearing 39-year-old Mike Love sing “hail, hail, rock & roll / deliver me from the days of old” is just so profoundly fucking depressing and artless. The kind of bad album that proves that a great band was actually never all that great to begin with. Without Brian Wilson’s songwriting and especially without his production, the Beach Boys are not worth a hot piss in a hurricane, and in the year of our lord 1980 Brian Wilson seems to be, let’s say, emotionally checked out of the Beach Boys as an artistic endeavor. It’s boring, sterile slop, and only Bruce Johnston’s pretty “endless harmony” is stopping me from coming up with some new worse verdict than SKIP for it. An insult to the genre.
VERDICT: SKIP
Triumph - Progressions of Power
Eh, not really for me. It’s not that this Canadian trio is strictly untalented— look, this is a good week to be a fan of metal that knows how to party. Triumph is better-humored than Def Leppard, too, but I’m still just not quite enough of a Van Halen fan to care about the store brand stuff. Headbanging guitar antics do abound on the kickier tunes, the opener and “Tear The Roof Off”, and “Woman In Love” is fun strip club fare, but they’re just too-too fond of tropeish bluesy stuff, and they don’t have a David Lee Roth to sell it.
VERDICT: FINE
Chaka Khan - Naughty
I’m only passingly familiar with Chaka Khan’s work with funk outfit Rufus, but I remember them sounding a bit grittier? Well, if so, Chaka certainly cleans up alright: Naughty is a soft-focus, steamy bedroom album, VERY fittingly titled, with a powerhouse belter fueling it to more energized heights than, say, Barry White- Hell, “Too Much Love” is almost new wave in its antsy jumpiness. Tracks 3 and 4 really lose me, lacking in the taut groove that so animates the rest of the album, but the rest is kind of a jam? I definitely like it a lot more than Sister Sledge, at any rate.
VERDICT: NICE
Frank Sinatra - Trilogy
If power pop is on perpetually shaky footing with funk and disco, it’s lost at sea with jazz, but in that sea Frank Sinatra is a towering lighthouse, a monolith of pure Americana, an artist who, in many ways, belongs to us all, whether we want him or not. I’m gonna be real: for the first two discs, this was bordering on ZAMNworthy. Three whole discs of sixty-four-years-Old Blue Eyes, though, jeez Louise… okay, so the premise is past, present and future: Billy Mays’ Past disc returns Sinatra to the world of jazz standards, Don Costa’s Present disc shifts focus to hits of the modern era, and Gordon Jenkins’ Future disc, uhh, falls apart completely into formless, rambling digressions about the solar system and cheese pizza? Sinatra is an undeniable part of pop’s past, and his handling of Irving Berlin, Cole Porter and George Gershwin is appropriately assured, burnished, classic and classy. He’s a part of the present, too: “Just The Way You Are” and “New York, New York” are both revelations here. He is not, however, part of the future, except in the way the past always is. Sinatra will be remembered forever; “World War None!” has already been forgotten.
VERDICT: NICE
Van Halen - Women & Children First
It’s not really that Eddie shreds that much harder than anyone else currently shredding (though he does), it’s more that Diamond Dave is shameless enough to make the whole thing more than camp, more than technical or genre exercises, more than macho posturing. Their warp-speed boogies go harder than ever (“Romeo Delight”, “Loss of Control”), their sense of humor is still sharper than about any other stadium act I can think of (“Fools”, “Could This Be Love?”), and their command of the blues is so complete that it makes it even more hysterical for their frontman to be the Al Jolson fanboy he is. You simply have got to hand it to them: heavy metal has never been this much fun before. Mindset of the week: Could this be magic? Or could this be love? Could this turn tragic? You know that magic often does / And I see lonely ships upon the water / Better save the women and children first
VERDICT: ZAMN
The Motors - Tenement Steps
The Motors are not the kind of power pop band that’s really aiming for album statements that transcend the sums of their parts— it’s all about that one song that lucks its way into your heart and makes you a devotee for life. On their 1978 debut it was the jackhammering rocker “You Beat The Hell Outta Me” and the treacly Motown pastiche “Soul Redeemer”, and while nothing on Tenement Steps is as good as either of those songs, the paranoid title track and the waltz-time “That’s What John Said” make for a satisfying enough takeaway. One of the most likable albums of the week, even if I can’t really imagine it knocking anybody’s socks off.
VERDICT: NICE
10cc - Look Hear
Look Hear mostly sounds like a slightly weaker, more generic version of Bloody Tourists, which was already mostly a slightly weaker, more generic version of Deceptive Bends. And look, I love Deceptive Bends, but three is at least one too many. It’s official: things just aren’t the same without Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. 10cc has always been a product defined by the studio, but they’ve never quite sounded overproduced like they do here, the fussy reggaes and fussier prog-gays are all slick enough to blur together into mush, only saved by those witty, witty lyrics (The line about TV dinners is about all that’s stuck with me). Eric Stewart and Graham Gouldman are still talented, observant guys who know a good melody, but they sound too comfortable here. Diehard fans will know this should either be funnier or prettier, and casuals won’t bother once word gets out there’s no “Dreadlock Holiday” or “The Things We Do For Love” (which is the real killer).
VERDICT: SKIP
Teenage Head - Frantic City
Not terribly impressed by the down-the-line garagey retro pop punk on offer here, but these Canadians have enough spirit to wiggle your butt to for 35 minutes, and if it isn’t anything more, well, who said it had to be? “Ain’t Got No Sense” off their 1979 debut is still their best for my money, but “Total Love” is a strong contender in its own right, and the Eddie Cochran cover is a lot of fun too. Personally, I just wish it was overall a little less rockabilly, or a little more catchier. The second track lifts the melody from “The Kids Are Alright” so blatantly that I’m almost a little suspicious they’re trying to filter the real power pop heads among their audience- a little more ambition could do ‘em good, is what I’m saying.
VERDICT: FINE