RECORD STORE DAY: 10 (More) Albums That Changed My Life, Part Four - NEW WAVE Edition

10 (More) Albums That Changed My Life

Part Four: 

NEW WAVE Edition

By Stephen SPAZ Schnee

     In order to change the format a little, I thought I’d present a list of another 10 amazing albums that changed my life, but this time I’d venture out into that amazing wilderness called NEW WAVE… which really isn’t a musical genre at all… And, lo and behold, this list contains albums and artists that actually scored hits thanks to radio stations like KROQ and, of course, MTV! It was always a thrill when an album that I had owned for months finally got the attention it deserved and started selling. As many of us know, there are so many great bands of all genres that deserved fame and fortune but, for some reason, it just never happened for them…. 

     So, what was New Wave? Well, as I stated, it wasn't initially a genre of music: it originally was a description given to a fast-growing movement of new artists that had evolved from the Indie and Punk scenes of the late '70s. These new artists were a little more accomplished musically and created songs that were more sophisticated and melodic than their Punk and Indie brethren, yet they still retained the excitement and quirky energy of Punk. 

   New Wave was actually a lazy way for critics to describe a band. Did The Jags and Culture Club really have anything in common stylistically? Er…no. Howabout The Fabulous Poodles and The Human League? Nope. Squeeze and Depeche Mode? Not really. But all of the aforementioned bands have been called New Wave during much of their careers. It boils down to lazy journalism written by stoned Prog Rock-loving critics who no longer understood the concept of a three minute Pop tune. Eventually, all the different sub-genres (Synthpop, Power Pop, Mod, Post-Punk, Goth, Ska, etc) became part of the New Wave umbrella and that is where they remain today. 

     I personally don't use the term New Wave to describe any of the bands I listen to, but in order to make the case for lazy journalism, I will on this blog entry! 

     Here are 10 albums that never fail to take me back to a certain period in my life. They may or many  not have sold millions of copies but they had an enormous impact on me. And they are albums I will cherish until my dying day….  I still remember the exact record store I made the purchases at and the first time I sat down with the headphones and gave it a listen...

     I’ve listed them in alphabetical order by band because, to be honest, I can never say that one of them had more of an impact on me than the other. They are all equally important. And I've refrained from explaining WHY they mean so much to me. Those reasons are ones that only I would understand... (and I'm sure that your choices are made based on similar situations and circumstances).

BLANKET OF SECRECY/Ears Have Walls

DEXYS MIDNIGHT RUNNERS/Too Rye Aye








THE ENGLISH BEAT/I Just Can't Stop It

THE FIXX/Reach The Beach

 

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS/A Flock Of Seagulls

INTERVIEW/Interview (AKA Snakes & Lovers)

NEW MUSIK/Sanctuary

PREFAB SPROUT/Two Wheels Good (AKA Steve McQueen)

SPANDAU BALLET/True

SPLIT ENZ/Time & Tide

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS/Dream Come True: Spaz reviews the EXPANDED reissue!

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS

DREAM COME TRUE 

(Expanded Edition)

Available NOW!

The great Cherry Records offshoot, Cherry Pop, has just reissued an expanded edition of A Flock Of Seagulls' fourth album (from 1986) and here is what I had to say about it over at All Music Guide.

"After a genre-defining debut, a satisfyingly somber sophomore album and a third full length that combined the best elements of the first two, things were amiss within the AFOS camp. After three hectic years of non-stop touring and recording, stress-laden guitarist Paul Reynolds promptly quit. Since Reynolds’ unique guitar playing was an integral part of their sound, the band chose not to replace him and they continued as a trio. Moving in a more danceable, Fairlight-driven direction, Dream Come True heralded a new sound for the band. While many critics and fans panned it upon release, the album has plenty of merit. More than half the album’s nine original tracks are worthy of your attention including the singles “Who’s That Girl (She’s Got It)” and “Heartbeat Like A Drum” plus other key cuts like “Cry Like A Baby”, ‘A Whole Lot Of Loving” and “Say So Much”. Musically, while the album was sonically ahead of it’s time in 1986, it has become the band’s most dated sounding release. For the first time in their short career, it seems as if they allowed then-modern production techniques to dictate the direction of the album, creating a clinical sound that was devoid of personality. The band’s unique style was completely gone, replaced by funky guitars, female backing vocalists and clumsy R&B/Dance rhythms. While Mike Score’s lyrics on their previous album, Story Of A Young Heart, were a conscious step away from sci-fi futurism of old, this album found him focusing exclusively on love and, ahem, sex. In the past, his occasionally banal lyrics were hidden behind the charm of the song’s melodies, but on Dream Come True’s musically weak tracks, Score’s limitations as a lyricist are often times more embarrassing than his hairstyle of old. “Love On Your Knees” is downright juvenile and just plain stupid. “Hot Tonight” lacks any sort of melody and is, ultimately, the worst track in the band’s entire catalog. The heavy handed “Better & Better” starts out fairly strong but ends up losing steam a little over halfway through, which is not a good sign since it’s the album’s opening track! In hindsight, Dream Come True is essentially a Mike Score solo album with occasional musical appearances from bassist Frank Maudsley and drummer Ali Score. And while the album is far from a total disaster, it doesn’t even come close to reaching the same heights as their first three albums. Still, it’s a nice addition to their catalog and is due for reappraisal right about now. This Cherry Pop reissue include remixes and edits of the album’s two singles plus the controversial non-album track “(Cosmos) The Effects Of The Sun”."-Stephen SPAZ Schnee/All Music Guide

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS: Their debut album REISSUED!

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS

A FLOCK OF SEAGULLS 

(Expanded Edition)

Available NOW!

The great Cherry Red Records offshoot, Cherry Pop, has just reissued the 1982 debut album from A Flock Of Seagulls including four bonus tracks (five if you count the song "Tokyo", which was not on the U.S. version of the album).  Here's what I had to say about it over at All Music Guide!

"Nearly 30 years after the release of this debut album, Liverpudlian quartet A Flock Of Seagulls are still best remembered for Mike Score’s aviation-approved hairstyle, which is an absolute shame. While it earned the band plenty of attention back in the heady days of MTV, it ended up hurting their musical legacy in the long run. Thankfully, when their biggest hit “I Ran” was used for the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, it renewed interest in the band and a whole new generation of AFOS fans were born.

When their debut album was released in 1982, they had already released the “Telecommunication” single and the “Modern Love Is Automatic” EP, which had already laid the groundwork for their unique style.  Mixing mood-inducing synth work with delay-laden guitar licks, A Flock Of Seagulls straddled the line between the cool coldness of early OMD and the bold bravado of U2, bringing both worlds together while adding a bit of sci-fi imagery and immediate commercial pop hooks.  When the single “I Ran” was released (before Score’s hair grew wings), the timing was perfect and AFOS’ career began to soar.  But apart from that big hit, did the band have much else to offer? Oh, yeah. Much, much more.

With this self-titled album, Mike Score, Ali Score, Frank Maudsley and Paul Reynolds set the bar extremely high, both for themselves and for their contemporaries. The band may have been lumped into the ‘Synth Pop’ category, but Reynolds’ guitar work was just as important to their sound as the keyboards and Score’s voice and futuristic lyrics. Take a listen to the glorious “Space Age Love Song”, for example.  It’s a guitar and synth instrumental that just happens to have vocals. These four musicians created their own musical world and for a few years, they were untouchable.

From the building synthetic swell of album opener “Modern Love Is Automatic”, these four young musicians and producer Mike Howlett took listeners on a trip through a world that was cold but not without feeling.  While the lyrical imagery was firmly rooted in the ‘space age’, the emotions were timeless. From the early days of Rock ‘n’ Roll, there have always been love songs and on this album, it’s no different.  Mike Score sings of love and isolation in a modern world, albeit one that is inhabited and ruled by technology only dreamed about back in Elvis’ day. AFOS, at their core, were really just a rock ‘n’ roll band with big dreams and bigger imaginations. On this debut, they were creative without being pretentious. 

When an album boasts a few hit singles, it’s considered a success and this album sports two instantly recognizable hits in the aforementioned ‘I Ran” and “Space Age Love Song”.  But this album has more than just those genre-defying classics: no less than eight of the album’s 10 tracks were on constant rotation on U.S. Alternative and college radio that year and the instrumental “D.N.A.” won the group a bona-fide Grammy.  Not many bands in the last 30 years can put that down on their resume!

A Flock Of Seagulls’ debut is a true classic: an album that defines an entire era, not just the band that recorded it. It has all the hallmarks of a classic album, from the songwriting to the production to the unrestrained creativity of its makers. It’s an exciting and timeless piece of pop that stands up three decades after it was created. It remains one of the absolute best albums of the ‘80s.

While the U.S. version of this album has been available on CD for years, the UK version of the album only appeared briefly on CD and has been out of print for ages. This excellent reissue takes the UK tracklisting (including the song “Tokyo”, which was NOT available on the U.S. album) and then adds four bonus B-sides including “Pick Me Up”, “Windows” and two instrumentals that give “D.N.A.” a run for it’s money: “Tanglimara” and “Intro”."-Stephen SPAZ Schnee/All Music Guide