Greg Kihn

ReKihndled...

The Greg Kihn (Band) albums 1976 - 1981.

Sometime during 1981 I started to hear a song on the radio that was completely different from anything else going on at the time.  Not that it was overly original or anything like that.  Far from it.  But it contained this impossibly catchy "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah" built-up chorus to the "They don't write 'em like that anymore" main chorus.  It was simple, to the point and irresistible. 

Soon enough I found out that this song, "The Breakup Song (they Don't Write 'em)", was by the Greg Kihn Band.  And, aptly enough, the album was called "RocKihnRoll" and I just had to have it. 

But although the album didn't really live up to Breakup Song's enormous power pop potential, it was nonetheless a mix of originals and covers alike so gloriously and refreshingly out of sync with the primitive synth-pop and stale AOR stadium rock of the time that one couldn't help but getting caught up in it.  Particularily, "When the Music Starts" became another instant and constant favourite...

   

"The Breakup Song" hit the Top 20 in the U.S. and a couple of years later the Greg Kihn Band even had a No. 2 hit in the territory with "Jeopardy" - a song which didn't even sound remotely like them!

By then though, Kihn, I believe, had lost the pop plot while I for one had lost interest...

Fast forward 20 years...

Vinyl was dirt-cheap, so life was good.  And, as one does in such circumstances, I started checking out some old favourites.  Greg Kihn (Band) amongst these.  Especially the early titles on the brilliant Beserkley label ("The Home of the Hits"...as the tagline went.  The fabulous Rubinoos, Jonathan Richman, Eartquake, and others also called it home although, unfairly, the actual hits were few and far between). 

"Greg Kihn" (Beserkley, 1976)

A very impressive debut, indeed.  From the get-go, the familiar approx. 7 to 3 mixture of originals and covers is firmly established.

Initially, upon hearing those early LP's, I felt the Matthew King Kaufman (Beserkley boss) and Glen Kolotkin production wasn't punchy enough.  However, as I became more familiar with the material, I think its somewhat sparse production remains its main strength.  Just take a listen to one of the key original tracks on this album...(Click on the link below)

ANY OTHER WOMAN

"Greg Kihn Again" (Beserkley, 1977)

OK, let's try to ignore the horribly un-PC album cover before we move on to the MUSIC itself...

Swiftly and firmly the triumphant debut was followed-up by this well-worthy and more band-oriented effort.  

It kicks off with a fine Buddy Holly-cover, "Love's Made a Fool of Me", while the original "Real Big Man" is also, err, a real treat on Side 1. 

However, Side 2 is a winner nearly all the way through.  It starts off with the excellent Kihn composition "Hurts So Bad", and leads us through Springsteen's "For You" and climaxes with another excellent original, "Madison Avenue".  

Kihn was one of the first artists to cover Bruce Springsteen.  Check out his fine interpetation of "For You" below...

FOR YOU   

"Next of Kihn" (Beserkley, 1978)

An altogether heavier affair than its predecessors, this eight-song selection is rather light on memorable hooks and choruses but not an unpleasant effort at all. 

Including for the first and last time no covers, "Remember", with its Spanish flourishes, and "Sorry" are the obvious highlights here. 

Also, Kihn's last credited solo LP for a while...

"With the Naked Eye" (Beserkley, 1979)

The first proper Greg Kihn BAND album, although these guys had been backing him for years.

Also, admittedly, my favourite Greg Kihn (Band) album of all time!

Chock-full of irresistable hooks and choruses, pop maestro Kenny Laguna had effectively been added to the production team of King Kaufman and Kolotkin by this point in time.

A lite Reggae-tinged "Moulin Rouge" (inexplicably, a flop 45), along with "Getting Away With Murder" and another great Springsteen cover, "Rendezvous", are the standouts here...

RENDEZVOUS

"Glass House Rock" (Beserkley, 1980)

Issued the same year as Billy Joel's multi-million selling "Glass Houses" album, this very similarily entitled (but far more worthy) LP unfortunately fell between the cracks.

Not nearly as strong as its predecessor, it nonetheless contains one of Greg Kihn's greatest self-penned cuts ever, "Anna Belle Lee".  How on earth this song failed to become the bona-fide classic it certainly deserves to be is anyone (else's) guess...

ANNA BELLE LEE

Otherwise, it's business as usual. 

An odd and under-produced cover of Bacharach's & David's "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance" (After all, how can you ever top Gene Pitney?) and Graham Gouldman's unremarkable Yardbirds hit "For Your Love" flesh-out an otherwise 'paint-by-numbers' set.

The following year's "RocKihnRoll", featuring the flawless "Breakup Song", was most certainly a step upwards.    

But now we've come full circle.

Arguably, the best recods in my humble opinion remain Greg's first solo album, "Greg Kihn" (1976), and Greg Kihn Band's first album, "With the Naked Eye" (1979). 

Today Greg Kihn is a popular radio show host.

His recorded legacy is poorly-served on CD.  Although there is a fine, albeit unsatisfactory, "Anthology" CD out there, one can always dream about that elusive 4 CD box set.  RocKihnRoll on!

ALL THE RIGHT REASONS

Last night a CD Saved My Life...

...Setting the record straight!

Although I'm an avid vinyl lover, I feel that the Compact Disc - alias the CD - has reveived a somewhat bad rap recently.
OK, so it's too (excuse the poor pun) compact, too plastic, too disposable...and obviously, the myth of it sounding better than vinyl has long since been retracted.  Nonetheless, a LOT of vinyl - especially much of the vinyl made during and after the late '70s, when it got noticeably thinner and less substantial due to the oil crisis, while all the alledged "advances in sound recording" were apparently no help at all! - sounds like s#*t as well.
Initially - and ultimately - what I've always liked about CD's, though, is the fact that they have a lot more SPACE for the MUSIC itself!  And music's the main point...right?
Now, I have in my collection a couple of thousand LP's, as well as a similar amount of CD's.  Once, a fellow vinyl enthusiast visited me and his first words were, literally and ever so distainfully, 'I had NO IDEA you had so many CD's!'
Hmm.
And it is exactly because of such sorry-ass snobbery that I feel the urge to sing the praises of certain exceptionally well-put together and satisfying CD comps...

Tommy James & The Shondells/"Anthology" (EMI-Roulette, 1990)

From the late '70s until the late '80s, Tommy James & the Shondells' - a '60s bubblegum/psych-pop group - three biggest hits were very widely covered.  "Mony Mony" (Billy Idol, Amazulu), "Crimson & Clover" (Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Keith Marshall) and "I Think We're Alone Now" (Lene Lovich, The Rubinoos, Tiffany) all became sizeable hits again on numerous occasions, which ensured the Shondells' name popping-up every now and again through the years.

After years (and decades) of merely single disc/LP collections being (barely) available on the market, in 1990 the time seemed ripe to compile the Shondells properly for the relatively recent CD format.  And so EMI unleashed this 27 track pop (near) perfection.  Only the routine "Louie Louie"-like dumbness of debut single "Hanky Panky" fails to please.  Otherwise it's an uninterrupted heavenly pop bliss all the way!

I propably haven't played any other CD - or record! - in my collection as much as I played this one during the early '90s when the rest of the world seemed preoccupied with something a lot less memorable and melodic (in my book) out of Seattle, WA. 

"Sugar on Sunday" (covered by The Clique), "I Think We're Alone Now", "Crystal Blue Persuasion", "Sweet Cherry Wine", "Crimson & Clover", et al - I sallute you!  Bubblegum isn't a dirty word.

 

The Rubionoos/"Everything You Always Wanted to Know About The Rubinoos But Were Afraid to Ask" (Sanctuary-Castle, 2007)(3CD)

In my humble opinion Californians The Rubinoos (still going strong, by the way) are one of the most underappreciated pop groups of all time!  A bold statement, I know, but one listen to this two disc (disc three is a live disc from 1978) anthology might be just enough to convince the sternest of music snobs of the Rubes' overall excellence.

The group came together as teenagers in the mid-'70s and quickly got signed to the eclectic roster of Matthew King Kaufman's burgeoning Beserkley Records label.

The appeal at first was strictly teen-age, but the boys' superb musical and vocalizing ability, as well as effortless Monkee/Beatle-like charisma was rather uncommon amongst other teenybop acts of the era.

An excellent 1977 cover of Tommy James & the Shondells' "I Think We're Alone Now" got them into the lower regions of the Billboard singles charts - as well as on Dick Clark's legendary long-running American Bandstand T.V. show.  The following year's "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend", although now a bona-fide Power Pop classic, in 1978 it went practically nowhere.  

Beserkley's limited distrubutional and promotional abilities was always the Rubinoos' main obstacle for major league success, and when they finally - reduced to a two-some in the early '80s - scored a recording deal with Warner Bros., their time had long since come and gone.

By 2007, when this little gem of a CD set came along, they had been undeservedly anthologized on CD, so it was about bloody time!

Always with a keen eye for a good pop song - no matter what the source - the Rubinoos also always wore their influences on their collective sleeve.  From debut single "Gorilla" (a DeFranco Family original!) to the Eurythmics' "Thorn in My Side", via the Raspberries' "Drivin' Music" and the Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains" - it's pure pop class all the way. 

Their self-penned originals ain't half bad either.  In a perfect world, "Leave My Heart Alone" and "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" - to name but two - should've been mega hits.





Manic Street Preachers/"National Treasures - The Complete Singles" (Sony-Columbia, 2011)

Love 'em or loathe 'em but the Manics are arguably one of the most reliable singles acts of the past twenty years.  And here are all thirty-eight of their singles lovingly compiled over 2-CD's.  The deluxe edition comes with a DVD containig all the promo videos as well as some alternate versions.  Needless to add perhaps, this package renders the patchy previous Greatest Hits collection "Forever Delayed" from 2002 completely and utterly redundant...not to mention several of their weaker long-players. 
"Everything Must Go" (1996) and "Send Away the Tigers" (2007) will always be essential, though.