Little did I know the hornet’s nest I was to stir up with my last post on this topic! Honestly, I was pressed for time and grabbed the first theme I could run with – hastily. Some very appropriate records were discussed in the comments; some of them damned fine records in spite of their fraudulence! One of the saving graces of New Wave is that it is a self-absorbed and ironic genre, with loads of room for surface and no real time for “authenticity.” Thus, paradoxically, some great faux New Wave records exist. We’ll get to those later. But we’re still grinding an axe, today. Here are some attempts by flabby old hacks that fail. Badly!
Steve Miller: Abracadabra
Capitol Records | US | LP | 1982 | ST-12216
Steve Miller had been lurking around the charts for at least 15 years before he tried to get hip and have a novelty “New Wave” hit. As a child, I first heard him via the repellent #1 hit of 1973, “The Joker.” 1975’s “Fly Like An Eagle” was Steve-o attempting an almost-past-its-sell-by-date faux-prog sound and ended up sounding separated from birth from Gary “Dream Weaver” Wright. By 1982 the lure of New Wave was too strong to resist; the kids were into it, what the hell. Steve inadvertently originated the ZZ Top video trope with the clip for this song. That is to say, the pudgy guitarist barely appeared in his own music video save for a few stills, leaving the screen time to models about 15 years younger than he was. The sad thing was, it worked. The tune was Miller’s last hit single in a [too] long career and a number one smash. How could he top this?
Steve Miller Band: Italian X-Rays
Miller tried to top this with a super-gimmicky sampler-infused record that was a diametric opposite of the cheeseball rawk that he had built a career on. True, this was cheeseball New Wave so maybe it was closer in spirit than I give credit for! Hell, it made “Abracadbra” sound like a delta blues record! But anyone who ever heard the mind-curdling single “Bongo Bongo” [and not many did] from this album, the inescapable conclusion could be drawn that Miller had heard The Art Of Noise and thought “I want a piece of that pie!” The end result was so many levels of wrong that it he only managed to release four more albums in the last 25 years and hasn’t come within spitting distance of the top ten again. Bonus points scored for the DeChirico inspired cover art.
Rod Stewart: Young Turks
Warner Bros. | US | 7" | 1981 | WBS 49843
This arrogant hack had been infecting the charts for well over a decade with his smarmy rasp. The days of his charming early hits* or his time fronting The Faces was water long gone under the bridge by this time. He finished the 70s with crass, lowest-common denominator rawk [“Hot Legs”] and opportunistic disco [“D’Ya Think I’m Sexy”] and by the dawn of the eighties, he was ready to conquer new worlds. Say, the kids now were listening to songs with hip, urgent rhythms… maybe he could get some of that! The resulting single, “Young Turks” sported candy coated synth riffs and a rhythm stolen right out of the Warren Cann [Ultravox] playbook.
As an Ultravox fan this gave me hives, particularly when Ultravox themselves couldn’t get arrested in the States. To drive the point home even further, the single sported a Russell Mulcahy video clip, seeing as he was the go-to man thanks to his deeply influential clips for, yes, Ultravox. Ironically, when former Ultravox singer Midge Ure was musical director for the Prince’s Trust charity concert for a few years following his involvement with Live Aid, he had the displeasure of reading Rod “The Mod” Stewart the riot act over his high-handed demands and attempted star moves. Mr. Ure told Roddy it was his way or the highway in no uncertain terms.
– 30 –
* The last song by Stewart I liked growing up was “You Wear It Well.”
Post-Punk Monk 
A couple of excellent examples, Jim. I have never understood Steve Miller’s career, and I’ve never even seen that “Italian X-Rays” LP! It sounds so wonderfully bad I’m tempted to check out some samples.
Really enjoying these posts.
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@Brian Ware – I just went to iTunes and heard about 45 seconds of “Bongo Bongo” for the first time since it came out and I saw the MTV clip [which I can’t remember]. I couldn’t bear the full 90 seconds. I’m deeply scarred anew.
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False New Wave is indeed an amusing idea, and great fun to read about. Rod actually began spicing things up around the time of his 45 “Passion” as well (the “Foolish Behavior” album). I liked his solo work OK when it was new (’71 – ’73), but always preferred his role in The Faces; I still like all 4 x proper Faces albums.
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@ronkanefiles – I like Rod singing in The Faces just fine. They were a great band I should have heard more of back in the day. What little I’ve heard was good. I have no need for 1975 onward from Rod.
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Great examples of New Wave bandwagoning! The record that still causes me to fight with myself is Foreigner’s “4.” This comes mainly from the lead track ‘Urgent.’ The fact that Thomas Dolby (moments away from beginning his own important contributions to New Wave) is really the primary reason that ‘Urgent’ is the song that it is, speaks volumes. The synths and treated horns are great, but I can never get it out of my head that it’s being performed by a band that was never really more than post-Queen hard rock, with a lead singer who looked like a mop in skinny jeans.
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@echorich – Please try not to fight with yourself! Ask yourself – am I deriving honest pleasure from this? If yes, then like it. And in the case of Foreigner, be comfortable with disliking 98% of their work, holding out an olive branch as it were for “Urgent.” I’m being truthful that I liked Rod in The Faces and during the early years of his solo career, no matter how much I’m repelled by the last 35 years of it. An all or nothing attitude with only succeed in removing every shading and nuance the world has to offer your senses; leaving you with the emotional equivalent of a brickwalled CD. And who, besides Ayn Rand followers [a.k.a. Randroids], would get off on that?
Post-Queen rock seems to be a good description of Foreigner. Nice one!
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I try to avoid using the term “guilty pleasure” in that it ends up belittling something that I truly enjoy (altho I will continue to be completely mortified by some of the bands and songs I privately derive pleasure from). Liking Foreigner’s “Urgent” is nothing to be tormented about. It’s damn catchy, it rocks, and it does have that smidge of new wave cred.
Speaking of (post) Queen – I am a big fan and really enjoyed their 80’s forays into disco, rockabilly, new wave (“Radio Ga-Ga, anyone?), etc. Again, loving Queen is nothing I experience guilt about.
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@Taffy – Loving Queen is nothing I experience. I think it all comes down to the material, and especially Brian May’s guitar tone! That chorus and sustain he overuses makes my skin crawl! I never liked Freddie Mercury’s singing either – I could hear the overbite. The one instance of his vocals I appreciated were his backing vox on Ian Hunter’s “You Nearly Did Me In” on “All American Alien Boy.”
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I definitely embrace Urgent, just stay carefully away from the rest of Foreigner’s output. I definitely can embrace some of the more embarrassing music in my vinyl collection. As much as I grew into my teens as a Punk/New Waver in NYC, there are albums by Andrew Gold, Paul Simon, Abba, the Bee Gees and Fleetwood Mac in my collection. I came to Punk from Disco, that other do-it-yourself movement that became controlled by the labels in the end, and I am very proud of that. I don’t think I have listened to any of them, accept possibly Abba, since hearing White Riot, but it’s where I come from. These days I can play Editors or The National and follow it with some Deep House like Ananda Project or Acid Jazz like Brand New Heavies and see the link to my youth.
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@Echorich – I grew up on Top 40 from the early to late 70s. Has there ever been a worse petri dish of musical influence? I was a kid with no siblings to guide me at all. I had to run across things by myself, and I was the musical influence among my peer group; so others relied on me to point out the interesting stuff. I sucked down awful top 40 offerings throughout elementary school and junior high. I listened religiously to one top 40 station on AM in elementary school. One top 40 station on FM in junior high school [better reception]. For some reason, I couldn’t think about moving that dial. Eventually the disco event horizon, where disco ceased to be a style of music and was now the sum of our culture started getting on my nerves. By 1977 that was definitely the case with disco movies and TV shows proliferating. Remember when even sitcoms had episodes that took place in discos?
By 1978 I was ready for something else. Late one Sunday evening I chanced to turn the dial and via the gateway drug of the Doctor Demento show, I discovered the world of “FM Rock.” “FM Rock” was a mindset of sex, drugs and rock & roll… and no disco! Emphatically – which was a huge relief for a while. Orlando radio played some of the most conservative, narrowly defined rock on the airwaves! In about the two years I could stand of it, I heard endless Stones, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Van Halen, Heart and of course, The Nuge. Ted Nugent played Orlando “Rock Superbowls” so often I thought the guy was a local! Fortunately, the “FM Rock” stations let in tiny amounts of different things that piqued my interest. Talking Heads’ cover of “Take Me To The River” got some decent airtime, and I could tell that this Punk Rock and New Wave, that I’d read about in Parade Magazine just might be the thing for me. I always loved keyboards and by 1979 had fully made the transition from old wave to New. I no longer listened to the radio and was buying the music as fast as I could afford it.
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(Back to “Italian X-Rays”) Jim, you wimp… not only did I bear the entire 90 second sample of “Bongo Bongo”, but I sampled the title track as well! I felt I had to man up and take one for our whole gang here.
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@Brian Ware – You’re a better man than I am, sir! As I’ve stated elsewhere, only the “Livin’ In The USA” single by Steve Miller ever worked for me. The rest of his material just has nothing to say.
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I will always love “I Want to be Free” from Queen. The video of them in drag is a perfect example of a video making me love a song I never would have otherwise.
They had some other good stuff early on as well, and I still admire Bohemian Rhapsody for the ground-breaker it was in it’s day. But if I never hear We Are The Champions again it will be too soon …
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chas_m: Obviously you liked the song so much you forgot that it was called “I Want To Break Free.” “Bohemian Rhapsody” always made me think “how much longer is this going to take?”
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Well, well, there’s obviously no budging you regarding your hatred of Queen. Ah well, to each their own. Even when I didn’t like the music, I always respected the talent, and I gotta say, nobody owned the stage like Freddie Mercury. I saw them live just once (summer of 1982) and still recall his commanding presence.
And yeah, the drag-tastic “I Want to Break Free” video is a hoot.
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Taffy – The video for “I Want To Break Free” is my favorite Queen moment. We do have a copy of Queen I in our home since my wife loves “Keep Yourself Alive.” It’s the only Queen song she likes, so she got the CD.
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That DeChirco cover is actually kind of cool…. makes me wonder if Miller had anything to do with it, or if it was the work of some faceless art director at the record label with a secret stash of awesomeness hidden up his sleeve.
I am also reminded of the twin 12″-ers from New Order for Thieves Like Us / Murder / Lonesome Tonight that also had neo-DeChirico covers — one of which ended up painted on the back of my jean jacket, circa ’85.
Re: Queen
Say what you will about their music, but their production was so freaking amazing that I use a purloined copy of the 24-track masters for Killer Queen *in my classroom* as a peerless example of how to arrange, track, and record a rock record. I have the 24-tracks for Rhapsody too, and to take those harmonies apart and listen to them one at a time is incredible. Aesthetically, they may not be to everyone’s taste, but there was scads of raw talent in that band which has seldom been matched.
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james – I’m certain Miller had nothing to do with that cover! The AD was shooting high for some New Wave cred with that one! After “Fly Like An Eagle” there were almost no SMB covers featuring the artiste himself. New Order’s cop is the best DeChirico rip out there in music. Sorry, Mr. Bowie.
My, my. The Queen apologists have come scuttling out of the woodwork! Since you are also responsive to the ELO gene [only a few chromosomes drifted from the Queen Sequence, in my opinion], your grudging admiration for Queen doesn’t shock. I can admire talent, but only in the service of art that I also admire. Talent – aesthetics = indigestion for me. I actually prefer ideas to talent, when it comes down to it. RTB’s production style is also a sticking point with me. I never liked the vast majority of what he produced, apart from “Shoo-Be-Doo” by The Cars, “All American Alien Boy” for Ian Hunter and “Clones” for Alice Cooper [we’re starting to eat our own tail here]. The DEVO record was the train going off the rails for them. And as I live and breathe, he produced “Urgent” by Foreigner! [insert dramatic stinger – here] No wonder Echorich so evocatively called them “Post-Queen Rock!” Can anyone else take this circle even tighter?
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Don’t *even* get me going on ELO – i love ’em! Especially later-period ELO (or as I like to think of them – the Electro Light Orchestra). Their 1982 Time album in particular, is delightfully daft science fiction twaddle of the highest order. I’ve actually played “Here is the News” in a DJ set with other early 80s synthpop, and the new wave kids never batted an eyelash.
I know it sounds like I’m an apologist for all kinds of “classic” rock, but I’m really not. I just like what I like, and somehow I see a thread connecting it all. Granted, it’s a long and tangled thread.
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Taffy – I was mowing my parent’s lawn some time in the early 1980s wondering what the next new, scary hybrid musical genre would be and I thought “techno-rockabilly” in an EGAD moment. Damned if Jeff Lynne’s production of “Information” by Dave Edmunds wasn’t just that!
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Well, Jeff Lynne first got his electro-twang groove on with “Hold on Tight” (on ELO’s Time) before he got his hands on Dave Edmunds. And (naturally) I love that song, despite it’s overexposure after being used in an ad for the “Coffee Achievers” (whoever the hell they were!). I know that Jeff Lynne’s production for George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, etc, left many cold, but I’m OK with it.
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Taffy – I think that Lynne’s work with the Wilburys was just fine. I liked the numbers he sang with them a lot more than ELO. He should have been working that country action all along.
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Final (maybe) thought on Steve Miller. Jim, you say his material just has nothing to say? I quote – “Take The Money And Run”.
End of report.
Interesting thread connections. I was wondering if your theme of phony new wave might evolve and mention The Cars. Maybe that’s a post planned for later. I’m a 50/50 fan. Love the first three, loathe the last three. E.L.O.? Okay in small doses. Pretty much the same for Queen.
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Brian – I don’t consider The Cars faux New Wave. They sprang from it legitimately. Got hugely successful, bully for them. Didn’t like them enough to buy the records. “Shoo-Be-Doo/Candy-O” is pretty amazing, but that’s the alpha/omega for me.
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Jim, I am shocked to hear that you’re not a Cars fan.
If you have a sec, check out their third elpee, Panorama.
Following two hugely successful records, and preceding two more even bigger records, the Cars’ third album had, basically, no hits. But it is their most dark, synthy, Euro-sounding, and I think it is – artistically – their best.
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james – I actually had a copy of the “Panorama” LP I picked up at the time. It went in the Great Vinyl Purge, Mk I. At some time in the early 90s friends were moving away and gave me their LP of it, so I’ve had another copy that I’ve not listened to for the last 18 or so years. I recall it was okay. Looking at the tracks now on Discogs, I can recall each of the songs in my head, which says something. Not awful, but not compelling… enough. If The Cars had ever made a whole album as extreme as “Shoo-Be-Doo” I’d have been there in a heartbeat! But that back cover to the LP was always fantastic!
An example of a back cover that was way more memorable than the front. Theory: “Panorama” failed commercially because it didn’t have a typical bimbo Cars cover, hmmm?
I thought the idea of The Cars linking up with Todd Rundgren and calling themselves the New Cars was brilliant! Todd would have been a great frontman for Hawkes & Robinson [the other guy I can’t remember… TB Player, maybe?]. But I guess it was just for a single tour. I would have went if they had played in town.
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I love the Cars. The Doobie Brothers/Jackson Browne-listening kids at college thought i was a hard-core punk (said in a slightly sinister way) because I played their first album incessantly. They were clueless.
As for the New Cars – maybe the idea was brilliant, but the reality less so. I saw them live (cuz they toured with co-healiners Blondie, whom i worship), and what a bizarro show that was. Todd (and Kasim Sulton, Todd’s cohort in Utopia) sang vocals on Cars hits and Todd sang solo stuff, and it seemed like original Cars (Elliot Easton and Greg Hawkes – not David Robinson) were just featured guests in their own band. It was sad for this Cars fan to witness, altho it did remind all that Easton was a damn fine guitarist.
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The four surviving original Cars are back together, and releasing a new record this year.
I am skeptical.
Here’s a topic for you Jim: reunited New Wave bands that have come back together after, say 15 to 20 years of making no new music, and have actually produced something good.
The new Devo album is so-so… I know you love the new OMD…. let us see what 2011 brings from the Cars and Ultravox.
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james – Without Ben Orr – the element X in the band, can they possibly rekindle anything? I’ve not heard the new DEVO yet. They were supposed to play the MOOGFEST in town last Halloween, but BOB I [or was that BOB II] cut his arm on a broken bottle [shades of the old days!] and they cancelled 48 hours prior – thank goodness! I was having massive cognitive dissonance about having DEVO in town, but playing a festival that would:
a) cost nearly $100 for a 1-day pass to see DEVO
b) nevertheless would not guarantee me admission to their show
c) have me rubbing shoulders [and more] with a huge festival crowd of undesirables
So when they cancelled, I really knew it wasn’t meant to be!
Re: Ultravox. As much as I love those guys, Midge Ure’s solo career leaves me real dubious. So many of his albums were egregiously lame I gave up on him. When the patchy “The Gift” stands as his apex, things aren’t looking good. I’ll adopt a wait and see posture. What have the rest done? I have some but not all Billy Currie albums. Warren Cann and Chris Cross did nothing musical since leaving the band. It all pretty much comes down to Ure and I’m not convinced.
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Granted, without the late Ben Orr, the Cars have lost their better vocalist, but I think this reunion at least holds promise, based on the short song snippets already posted online.
As for new Ultravox, I have hope that things will pick up from where the band left off (i.e. – after Lament, not U-Vox!) and not necessarily where Midge’s solo career was last seen headed.
As a comparison, 17 years after Blondie issued the Hunter, the nucleus of the band came back with No Exit. It had its flaws, but certainly was in sound and spirit a follow-up to that last Blondie album, and not to the series of solo albums Debbie Harry had put out in the intervening years.
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Taffy – I haven’t heard anything Debbie has released aprés “Debravation,” which disappointed me. That fateful night I saw Debbie doing a ghastly track date at The Edge in downtown Orlando in 199…4 [?] was the main reason I’ve shied away from her work, though. I loved “Def, Dumb & Blonde” great heaping loads! That was one of her very best records. I prefer it to all Blondie I’ve heard except for “Eat To The Beat” and the debut album.
But, Ultravox. Yeah. I’m a huge fan but expectation levels are pretty flat unless I hear a particularly strong sample. The horror of “Uvox” and the nosediving career of Midge Ure offer little hope. On the plus side, the 2xCD/DVD from the 2009 Roundhouse shows evidence Midge singing better than ever.
At least with The Cars Ric Ocasek wasn’t a putz like David Byrne and The [Talking] Heads. The fact that Ric gave them carte blanche and his best wishes to do the New Cars thing showed how together he was.
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I swear to gawd there is an episode of (wait for it) Doctor Who that makes extensive use of ELO’s “Mr Blue Sky” as part of a love letter to the late 70s like you have never seen and is unlike anything the show has ever done and naturally about 2/3rds of fans loathe it and the rest love it.
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chas_m – Leave it to you to sneak Dr. Who into this blog! But really, the only* valid context for such is the discussion of The Human League’s radiophonic masterpiece, “Tom Baker!”
* The Timelords fall outside of this blog’s purview!
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