The Cure: Seventeen Seconds (Fiction Records/1980)

The Cure's sophomore release, Seventeen Seconds was released in April of 1980. It is the first album to mark a distinct path away from the faster of edgy pop of their debut, Three Imaginary Boys or Boys Don't Cry as it was released in the US. The minimal, precise pop the band plays on Seventeen Seconds had been present on Three Imaginary Boys in the songs “Another Day”, “Accuracy” and the classic “Three Imaginary Boys”.

The album is amazingly successful in creating a definite mood and is psychedelic in a downbeat way. The drums of Laurence Tolhurst and keyboards of Matthieu Hartly are very minimal and precise. Robert Smith's guitar lines are bright and nicely chorused while Simon Gallup's bass lines generally provide the melody lines. “In Your House” is a psychedelic, new wave classic. “Play For Today” although a promo video clip was made for the song and it's appearance on the Staring At The Sea Compact Disc led many to believe it was a single, it was not. Although it does sound like a long-lost classic single.

“A Forest” in fact was a classic new wave single - it was a UK Top 40 hit and reached number 47 on Billboard's Dance Music/Club Play Singles chart. It's repetitive four-note bass-line, echoing vocals, backwards snare and chorused guitar all combined with a memorable Smith vocal performance make for a very memorable track. “Secrets”, “M” and the title track are effectively moody, lightly gloomy atmosphere pieces. “At Night” is a nocturnal mini-masterpiece. While “Three”, “A Reflection” and “The Final Sound” are basically instrumental exercises.

This is my favorite album by The Cure and I can't say enough good things about it.

Recommended. Highly.   

Here's the video review:

A Very Special Thanks To: Stephen Worth. 

Hüsker Dü: Statues EP (Reflex Records 1980 & Numero Group 2013)

 After being passed over by Twin/Tone Records for local upstarts The Replacements, Hüsker Dü entered Blackberry Way Studios in Minneapolis to record their would-be debut 10" EP. They instead paired it down to a more financially-feasible 7" single and released it on their own Reflex Records. Taken long-thought lost safety masters, it has been issued on Record Store Day 2013 as a deluxe 7" EP on Numero Group Records, including the two tracks that were dropped once the 10" release was scrapped.

"Statues" has a nice cyclical flanged bass-line and is a Public Image Limited-esque Grant Hart song about the straitjacket of punk conformity. "Amusement" is live recording of a Bob Mould-penned song that obliquely refers to the band being slighted by Twin/Tone Records. "Let's Go Die" is a Greg Norton song that was previously appeared on the 1993 Rhino Records compilation Everything Falls Apart And More. "Writer's Cramp" is a previously unreleased mid-tempo Buzzcocks-flavored song written by Bob Mould.

It's a fine debut single, and it barely hints at the direction the band would next take. It neither points toward the amphetamine-fueled live album Land Speed Record nor the debut studio album Everything Falls Apart.

Released as part of Numero Group's 700 Line (reissues), limited to 4,000 copies (2,000 on white vinyl & 2,000 on black vinyl) and packaged in a 28pt board gatefold sleeve. The artwork is exactly duplicated from the original Reflex issue on this very nice release. If there are still any post-punk aficionados who have not yet heard Hüsker Dü (which to my mind is like a baseball fan not being all that familiar with who Nolan Ryan was), you need to hear this release, or New Day Rising, Flip Your Wig and Zen Arcade asap.

Here's the video review:

Thanks to Numero Group Records, Fake Name Graphx & Stephen Gersztoff.

Too Much Joy: Cereal Killers (Giant/ Warner 1991 & Side One Dummy Records 2013)

 Scarsdale, New York's Too Much Joy are perhaps one of my all-time favorite bands. They were most certainly my favorite 90's band (they existed in the public eye from 1987 - 1997). Having said this, it's not so difficult to retain all objectivity when discussing them anymore (or other favorite artists of mine). If I were still a teen, which I haven't been for a few years, this would be a completely different story. My enthusiasm for the band was sincere, as they were all but updated hybrids of various favorite bands of mine. Namely The Replacements, but there were elements of Cheap Trick meets The Clash and The Who meets The Raspberries as well, here and there.

There was a subversive element where the vocals were concerned. They approached their backing vocals as maybe The Beach Boys filtered through the Beastie Boys, but they were a guitar-based proto-pop-punk quartet. Or just a punk-y power pop band. Their lead singer/lyricist Tim Quirk had a fairly unconventional voice. It's pretty obvious Lou Reed was a template for him. Or at least it was an excuse to talk-sing his vocals, some of the time (this is probably most obvious on the band's debut album Green Aggs And Crack). Guitarist Jay Blumenfield had the best voice in the bunch and could hold his own with either R.E.M. jangle or Clash-infused barre chords. Sandy Smallens was a dexterous bassist and whose over-emoted vocals acted as a perfect foil the sweet vocals of Blumenfield and talkier vocals of Quirk. Now-retired NYPD Sergeant drummer Tommy Vinton was basically modern-rock's answer to Keith Moon. Instrumentally, he's possibly the finest in Too Much Joy. He could play small, understated parts and loud, overstated ones with equal skill. 

When I heard Too Much Joy for the first time it was in my friend, the late-Eddie Byrne's living room. On the stereo we had on WDRE 92.7 FM in the Summer of 1991. "Long Haired Guys From England" came on, and it was a complete breath of fresh air from what seemed like a stagnant programming-time on my favorite station. The song was four chords (A-E-G-D) repeated for two-minutes and forty-five seconds. It was loud, catchy, memorable, clever and funny. It sounded like it was going to go off the rails toward the end, yet somehow gained momentum and ended no sooner than it began. However, the song segued into a stream of commercials and there was no mention of the artist's name when the D.J. returned to announce the next block of songs. Regardless, I loved it. 

And then I forgot about it for about a year, until bonafide Too Much Joy fan and fellow alternative music lover Doug Mashkow loaned me Too Much Joy's third album Cereal Killers (along with their second, Son Of Sam I Am). For some reason Cereal Killers was a difficult listen at first - I initially found there to be too much separation between the vocals and the music, why is the lead singer singing...like that? What was up with these synthesized glockenspiels? I returned to the album a day or so later. Eventually, the fourteen songs on Cereal Killers sunk their subversive power pop/pop-punk metaphoric teeth in. The lyrics were plainly brilliant, the music was well-written and executed and the band was basically a pop juggernaut. 

The songs are basically in something of a loose-thematic cycle. When analyzing/dissecting the album, S. Scott Lessig's apt description in Issue Six of Joybuzzer is "Loneliness leads to alienation (which) leads to rage".  He basically sums up the entire album with that one sentence. I'd  have to add "Resignation" to that description as well. The alienation in the songs, "Pirate", "Goodbye Ohio" & "William Holden Caulfield" also contain the element of rage. In fact, you could easily make a pie chart with which songs fall into which part of the pie (alienation/resignation/loneliness/rage), and have a ridiculous amount of overlap. It was fairly unique at the time - recorded in the Summer of 1990, released in the Spring of 1991 - for an album this dark to have such a pop sheen. Having said this, for the listeners who wanted to wade in the shallower waters of the material; there are plenty of references to getting drunk, getting stoned, and having sex. 

Produced by Paul Fox, who also produced XTC's Oranges & Lemons, Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians' Perspex Island and They Might Be Giants' John Henry, the album was a critical success. Its' only flirtation with the charts was the power pop single "Crush Story" (which also stealthily recycles the same chords from "Long Haired Guys From England" for the verses) peaking at #17 on Billboard's Modern Rock Charts. It also contained the Replacements-like single "Susquehanna Hat Company", the somewhat true-story "Thanksgiving In Reno", the frat-rock classic "King Of Beers", the completely-in-denial "Nothing On My Mind" and the bands' very own "Theme Song".

Side One Dummy Records has done vinyl-loving TMJ fans the service of reissuing the album on vinyl. Its' only initial vinyl release was in Germany which awkwardly contained the 1990 single "That's A Lie" from Son Of Sam I Am. It is a limited pressing of 500 yellow and 500 blue copies. The release contains newly-penned and plenty revealing liner notes from Tim Quirk. Some orders made through www.sideonedummy.com will contain a brand new issue of Too Much Joy's Official Fanzine Joybuzzer. Side One Dummy did a really nice job with the release - the vinyl looks really nice and the record sounds beautiful. The packaging is faithful to the artwork of original release. Hopefully Side One Dummy will one day release the band's follow-up album Mutiny as well (which would be making its debut on vinyl, if they did).

Highly Recommended for fans of snarky modern rock (the then-term for such bands), pop-punk and power pop alike. 

Here's my video review of the album:

Special thanks to Clive Young (for the nice blue vinyl), Joybuzzer Zine and Doug Mashkow at CD Island (for the informal introduction to the world of Too Much Joy).