POP!
Dress you up
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2007
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- 50,702
Let’s see how this GOES. On Monday we (hopefully not just me) will be doing a sync listen of two iconic, but often overshadowed, pop classics at 8pm UK time. If this goes well perhaps we can make our way through the entire discography in advance of their new album and tour (coming 2021).
Eat to the Beat expands upon the pop acumen of Parallel Lines into power pop, wall of sound territory with “Dreaming”, “Union City Blue” and the title track, while venturing into the existential disco drama of “Atomic”, dynamic funk of “Hardest Part”, and Motown steeped “Slow Motion”. The album is relentless until it is comatose (“Sound a Sleep”). For reasons unknown, the album lacked an enduring hit in the States, but gave us the first long form video album when the format was in its infancy.
Autoamerican was maligned by some critics when it arrived in Autumn 1980 after “Call Me” dominated that summer. Rolling Stone declared it one star out of five, seemingly out of spite for its experimentalism and almost intentional lack of cohesion. But almost exactly 40 years later, Autoamerican’s unapologetic hodgepodge of disco, jazz, rap, reggae, and punk, is its finest attribute and makes it more enduring than most albums of the era. The album was perhaps the beginning of the end, they were clearly high as kites at this time and friction in the band was growing (perhaps why there was no tour and only two singles). But we stan.
WHO IS IN?
Eat to the Beat expands upon the pop acumen of Parallel Lines into power pop, wall of sound territory with “Dreaming”, “Union City Blue” and the title track, while venturing into the existential disco drama of “Atomic”, dynamic funk of “Hardest Part”, and Motown steeped “Slow Motion”. The album is relentless until it is comatose (“Sound a Sleep”). For reasons unknown, the album lacked an enduring hit in the States, but gave us the first long form video album when the format was in its infancy.
Autoamerican was maligned by some critics when it arrived in Autumn 1980 after “Call Me” dominated that summer. Rolling Stone declared it one star out of five, seemingly out of spite for its experimentalism and almost intentional lack of cohesion. But almost exactly 40 years later, Autoamerican’s unapologetic hodgepodge of disco, jazz, rap, reggae, and punk, is its finest attribute and makes it more enduring than most albums of the era. The album was perhaps the beginning of the end, they were clearly high as kites at this time and friction in the band was growing (perhaps why there was no tour and only two singles). But we stan.
WHO IS IN?
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