ALBUMS: Love and Hope and Sex and Dreams (1986)
MVC Rating: 4.0/$$
I’m going three for one here on posts. Here are three albums, not much alike but a little. All produced in the mid-to-late 1980s, when music was straddling New Wave synth sound and the early throes of what some call Americana. BoDeans was definitely pre-Americana or maybe not even pre.
Some of these three groups did well, but none became widely, wildly well known. Some cult-following fans may argue otherwise. (I have to say it takes a few seconds to get over the BoDean’s lead vocalist’s nasal sound, which briefly sent me back in memory to our falsetto guy in Bread and Butter. Just brace yourself.)
The album, produced by T-Bone Burnett (yes he gets around) named after a Mick Jagger proclamation in”Shattered,” wanted to set a bar, perhaps too high.
I must say though, the first two songs on the album were the best one-two opening of an 80s record album I’ve ever heard. The songs steam along, sounding as if they were one song with the ‘keyword’ being runaway or fadeaway. See video of just one of those songs and I think you’ll get it.
ALBUM: Outskirt (Blue Rodeo, 1987)
MVC Rating: 3.5/$$
Now if the BoDeans were fledgling Americana pioneers, Blue Rodeo was Canadian and not so new sounding, despite their name.
They were pretty much traditional country, from north of the border. Pleasant songs that surely seem to have been a good road for them. This is the first album of about 20 they have recorded. Nice, relaxing, tuneful most of the time but every now and then they’ll turn the rock amp up to 7 and show some chops. ‘Pirhana Pool’ is a nice jazzy country playground for keyboards and restrained guitar accents.
ALBUM: Beat Hotel (Bongos, 1985)
MVC Rating: 3.5/ $$$
So what is with these Beat names. Earlier I’ve reviewed Beat Radio, the Beat Farmers, and the Beat. Now the Bongos are in front of me with Beat Hotel, their album. You think they would use a little imagination to separate themselves like, oh I don’t know, the Beatles.
This album is certainly not Americana or country in anyway. They are a talented band coming into the 80s where rock music was transitioning between the commercialization of punk, the glorification of album rock or so-called classic rock and destruction of the democratization of radio. That’s a fancy way for me to say that everything started to sound the same on the radio. The Bongos had some nice tunes, kind of a tamer Beat. But of the three reviewed here the Bongos sound most dated, now sure to make a nostalgic comeback as I write this.
Counting down my 678 vinyl records before I die of brain disease.