Permanent Waves #7
We need change, and we need it fast!
Welcome, or welcome back, to PERMANENT WAVES, a chronological journey through the power pop (and beyond!) of the year 1980.
This is a big one! Not only do we have some bona fide power pop all-stars amidst the eleven albums on the docket here this week, we have not one, not two, not three, but FOUR sets of siblings (FIVE, if you count the Ramones, which you SHOULD). Grab a sister or a brother and tuck in your napkin, ‘cause we’ve got a heaping helping to chew through. Let’s mindset.
Sister Sledge - Love Somebody Today
As we’ve established, power pop mindset is far from a reliable thermometer when it comes to disco, but with that said, I’m finding this a little flat as far as Nile Rodgers productions go. It’s not bad: the title track delivers a vivacious, bouncy go-get-em-girl vibe, and “You Fooled Around” and “Pretty Baby” both get me groovin’ nicely, but whenever it deviates much from Rodgers’ most typical funky stylings, I lose interest pretty fast— it just sounds sterile. “Easy Street” and “Let’s Go On Vacation” both feel almost Steely Dan-ish in their slick, upper-middle-class jazziness. And I may not know much, but I know that ain’t top-shelf disco.
VERDICT: FINE
The Brothers Johnson - Light Up the Night
This gets within spitting distance of ZAMN territory just off of “Stomp!”, one of the funnest funk singles I’ve heard. Parts of the rest of the album certainly live up to that song’s slap-bass action (“Celebrations”) or its irresistible hook-craft (the hilarious “You Make Me Wanna Wiggle”, the Michael Jackson-assisted “This Had to Be”). As a whole, though, it just falls the slightest bit short. The main culprits are (naturally) the two ballads— at least the sisters Sledge can put a little power in their crooning, yeesh. It falters for the exact reasons it succeeds: it’s just not that deep, and it mostly gets by on enthusiasm. Boy, do those funky party-starters ever get by, though!
VERDICT: NICE
Bryan Adams - Bryan Adams
In 2025, Bryan Adams is a miserly, cold-hearted old prick, the kind of asshole to literally sue his critics, and doubtless fuck something up in the process that causes half of this album to not stream properly on YouTube. Ugh. In 1980, Bryan Adams is a miserly, cold-hearted young hunk who parlayed a brief stint in Vancouver glam act Sweeny Todd into– what else?– a power pop solo pivot containing 1. a handful of sprightly, faintly rootsy rockers, most of which are likeable if indistinct, 2. a truly putrid, joyless ballad called “Give Me Your Love”, and 3. a rather comical stab at disco called “Don’t Ya Say It”. Since most of his subsequent mega-hits most closely resemble 2, this registers as a pleasant surprise at its best, certainly more fun than I knew the man to be capable of. At worst, it’s the reason I had to use retching puking Spotify this week, and more generally a grim reminder of the world to come.
VERDICT: SKIP
Heart - Bebe le Strange
Side A starts and ends strong enough that I was almost convinced the whole thing was on-par with one of the lesser Led Zeppelin albums. Revisiting a couple Physical Graffiti highlights quickly disabused me of that notion. Ann and Nancy Wilson bring the hard-rock grit, to be sure, but is grit really all there is to hard rock? Where’s the grandiosity, the raw, seamy pathos, the fuckin’ ambition??? My diagnosis: The Wilson sisters either need about six times the folk influence they currently have, or about an ounce of awareness of punk. Until then, I can’t imagine them sounding any less outdated than this— surely, by this point, we have enough yowling bloozy white rock albums to last us all a few lifetimes?
VERDICT: SKIP
Sparks - Terminal Jive
Given how many times I’ve already name-dropped the infamous Sparx Brothers in this series, you’d think I’d be more of a fan, but pretty often I find them a little much, and/or not as subversive as they think they are. Plus, as I’ve mentioned, Russell Mael’s voice is a unique instrument. Their second collaboration with italo-disco wizard Giorgio Moroder is less futuristic and more self-conscious (ROCK AND ROLL PEOPLE IN A DISCO WO-ORLD) than No. 1 in Heaven. The good stuff is mostly diminished returns, and the bad stuff is, well, a little much, and/or not as subversive as it thinks it is. Keep the tender, catchy “When I’m With You”, and maybe “Stereo” for good measure. Toss “Young Girls” for obvious reasons, and “Noisy Boys”, which is Slade without the muscle.
VERDICT: FINE
Elvis Costello & the Attractions - Get Happy!!
I made a token attempt to not give special treatment to series mascot Elvis Costello, I promise, but this one has had a LOT of time to grow, and it has not merely grown but blossomed. Mister Costello’s power pop mindset is, quite simply, not to be doubted. Get Happy!! marks yet another reinvention for the Attractions, trading angry pub-rock and nerdy new wave for manic, muscular blue-eyed soul. One imagines Elvis eager to make amends with a black American audience who mostly know him as that guy who made some very offensive remarks about Ray Charles and James Brown— Motown and Stax moves all over this one. Twenty songs are packed onto just two sides of vinyl here, and though not one of them is as good as “Radio, Radio” or “(What’s so Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding”, each one sooner or later reveals a hook that draws me in closer than, say, “Green Shirt” or “I Don’t Want to Go to Chelsea”. The ska touches are brilliantly understated, the lyrics are as quotable as ever, and a decent handful of tracks even make their mark as signposts for true-blue artistic growth: “Love For Tender”, “The Imposter”, “High Fidelity”, “Motel Matches”, “Riot Act”, insert your favorite here! He still sings funny– Is that a dealbreaker? No, it’s a mindset. Mindset of the week: You’ve never been this far, you’ve always been too smart / And you know all our boys are really girls at heart
VERDICT: ZAMN
Original Mirrors - Original Mirrors
Pretty typical synthed-up arena rock type beat here; I was more or less ready to let it off easy with a FINE. Imagine my dismay upon discovering that Original Mirrors are actually the spawn of Deaf School, a highly underappreciated Liverpool glam-rock outfit whose 1978 album English Boys / Working Girls metabolized punk and pub-rock damn near peerlessly. Well, only two short years of advances in recording technology have clearly spoiled these scousers rotten. Original Mirrors is stuffed to the gills with sound and fury signifying nothing, exactly adequate as background noise and not one smidgen more. The hooks aren’t hooky, and the sound is too smothering to be any fun to focus on. Whoever it was that was writing all those infectious Deaf School songs, Steve Allen had better hire them back on quicksharp, and find a more restrained producer while he’s at it.
VERDICT: SKIP
Ramones - End of the Century
The once and future princes of pop-punk follow up their genre-defining 70s run, culminating with their greatest album Road to Ruin, with a merely good movie-semi-tie-in misadventure, featuring child-torturing maniac Phil Spector on production and violent drunken threats duty. “Rock ‘n’ Roll High School” is as fun and as lightweight as its namesake film, and the more retro numbers (“Do You Remember Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio?”, “Baby, I Love You”) find a real spark of romance in the boyish conviction of Joey’s vocal delivery. Johnny’s apoplectic buzzsaw guitar fares worse, smothered by the usual Spector flourishes more often than not. Rough trade icon Dee Dee, as always, is an X-factor that can’t be captured in critic-speak. Tommy is sorely missed.
VERDICT: NICE
Warren Zevon - Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School
I think I like this guy more than Bruce Springsteen, though I’m much more bearish on his commercial prospects— No “Werewolves of London”-esque crowd-pleasers this time around, folks. Much like Springsteen, Mister Zevon tends to try too hard as a singer, but he’s got a wicked sense of humor, and he keeps a watchful, humane eye on his cynical streak because he’s smart enough to not confuse jadedness for wisdom. I like the Allen Toussaint cover, and the one about the escaped zoo gorilla, and the one about GRANPA PISSED HIS PANTS AGAIN HE DON’T GIVE A DAMN. Ultimately, though, I don’t think this style of Dylan-worshipping poet-rock is really for me. His last one was much stronger on the power pop front, and one album is about as much as I need.
VERDICT: FINE
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
This Welsh band may reject punk’s rebellion and its catharsis, but they adhere to its minimalism more devoutly than about any other band I’ve ever heard. This is a sparse, spartan, empty-sounding album where the sparse spartan emptiness is very much the point. I think I’d probably like most of these fifteen songs more if performers with more pizazz were to cover them, but as far as albums about doodling around in the void with synthesizers and drum machines go, it’s pretty damn listenable— frontwoman Alison Statton’s deadpan vocal delivery is a good fit. Best track: “Credit in the Straight World”, about the cost of trying to make normies like you. I’m sure they’d know!
VERDICT: FINE
Rachel Sweet - Protect the Innocent
On her 1978 debut album Fool Around, 16-year-old Rachel Sweet presented a twangy take on new wave that won me over largely as an earnest, straightforward pitch for power pop’s place in Nashville, or perhaps more appropriately for country’s place in the teen-pop canon. Alas, I’m starting to get a nagging sense that Sweet, now 18, thinks she’s matured a lot more than she actually has— which is honest in its own 18-year-old way, sure, but her showbiz-kid roots show through enough to make me question if she shouldn’t still be trying to play the innocent who needs protecting while she still can. That album art is not it, sister— You aren’t a dominatrix, you can’t even buy yourself a drink! More than anything, I’m just not getting the same buzz off the genre fusion at play this time around: it’s all well and good to soften up some punk tunes for the small-town girls, but I want to hear some rowdy takes on country standards to match! The Elvis cover is a fine start— now amp up some old Willie Nelson chestnuts and we’ll really be getting somewhere.
VERDICT: FINE