45 revelations

45 revelations

by

Ken Barnes

What this column needs is a recurrent hook. A recent informal poll I took on the street showed responses evenly divided between “get outta my face!” and “great column, bud, but it needs a recurrent hook.” Heeding the voice of the people, I stopped taking informal polls on the street and came up with an elementary recurrent hook. From now on, I’ll designate a Single of the Month.

The first award winner is “I Don’t Know Why You Don’t Want Me” by Rosanne Cash. I’ve been a fan of hers since the sublime “Seven Year Ache,” a sort of “Be My Baby” of infidelity that almost broke her out of country Coventry a few years back. With any justice, this breathtaking single will cross her over. A seductive melody, heartache-laden vocals, delicate production (anything with bells in it, I’m a goner) and a shivery multi-tracked harmony close that wraps it all up and sends it off to dreamland. (Rosanne’s Rhythm & Romance LP, from which this is taken, is also Album of the Month, but that’s not my department.)

Winner any other time would be “In My Life” by the Dlvinyls, but I disqualified it because it’s several months old (hard to stay current with Australian records). I’m becoming convinced that the Divinyls are the sharpest rock band around. This record sounds in parts like AC/DC backing Kate Bush, has a melodic guitar riff perfectly welded to its raunchy substructure and features a withering sarcastic aside (when Chrissie Amphlett, discussing her fabulously rewarding education, sneers, “Such advantages”) worthy of Johnny Rotten himself.

I’ve already urged you to pick up on the vastly talented Kirsty MacColl via her U.K. hit “A New England.” The follow-up, “He’s On The Beach,” latticed by guitars and cushioned by harmonies is another pop sparkler. Cyndi Lauper’s “The Goonies ‘R’ Good Enough,” mock-oriental intro and girl group chord change cliches, is as schlocky an instant hit-by-numbers as you’re likely to hear. I like it just fine.

Ever since Robert Johnson untangled the distributor wires of his baby’s car in “Terraplane Blues,” cars and sex have been a metaphorical couple. Springsteen’s “Pink Cadillac” put them back on the track, and now there are two new records using autoerotic metaphors. Aretha Franklin’s “Freeway Of Love,” featuring her own “pink Cadillac,” is her biggest pop smash in more than a decade thanks to a steamy funk track and a vocal to match. Siedah Garrett, who must become a star someday, cruises the same stretch of highway on “Curves,” daring her driver to “handle these curves” without “losing control.” Subtle stuff.

Teena Marie favors more arboreal metaphors on “Out On A Limb,” singing the stuffing out of an impassioned ballad, pulling out all her wildest Linda Jones vocal extravagances and purely smoking. The Mary Jane Girls don’t mess with metaphors; they merely act out Rick James’s fantasies literally on “Wild & Crazy Love,” over almost as torrid a groove as “In My House.” Melba Moore’s last record, “Read My Lips,” shared the producer and rock/R&B fusion sound of Billy Ocean’s “Loverboy.” “When You Love Me Like This” resembles Ocean’s “Caribbean Queen,” a deceptively simple song featuring countless hooklets with delayed time bomb potency. Look out for those Keith Diamond productions.

Moving into my favorite realm of pop hiphop (female-sung melodic pop/R&B with lots of technological trickery), one of the best comes out of Holland, Mai Tai’s updated Chic-ish “History.” Alisha, whose “All Night Passion” was a sterling pop hiphopper, moves closer to prime Madonna territory with the glitzy, pretty “Too Turned On.” Whiz Kid’s “He’s Got The Beat” contemporizes a time-honored girl group tradition of boyfriend boasts (“My Boy Lollipop,” “Leader Of The Pack”) by bragging about the singer’s beat boy’s cutting dance prowess. Funny but sincere enough to escape the parody trap. From the same stable (Tommy Boy) comes Golden Girls’ “Too Cute,” a pretty, slow SOS Band-style groover idolizing some dude with the dubious attribute of “more heart than Mr. T.”

Speaking of the SOS Band, they’re back with a fourth great single from the Just The Way You Like It LP, “Break Up.” Shuddering funk drums underpin a creamy tune and vocals— the usual Jimmy Jam/Terry Lewis production brilliance, in other words. Jam & Lewis’s former Time bandmate Monte Moir does a silkysmooth production job on yet another Minnesota scenester, Alexander O’Neal, resulting in a marvelous marshmallow soul ballad, “If You Were Here Tonight.”

Working the R&B/rock vein are the System, whose “The Pleasure Seekers” places power chords over a busy funk backdrop; and, of all people, typecast balladeer Peabo Bryson, who invades Jeffrey Osborne’s turf, armed with the compulsory acid-rock guitar, on the poppy “Take No Prisoners.”

Tom Petty, meanwhile, gets a little funky on “Make it Better,” which never approaches “Don’t Come Around Here No More’”s innovative incandescence, but contains small pleasures like some fast late-’60s soul riffing, a bridge strangely reminiscent of the Bee Gees’ “I Can’t See Nobody” and a chilled-out cover of Nick Lowe’s nervous breakdown classic “Crackin’ Up” on the flip.

San Diego’s Beat Farmers have a propulsive rocker called “Bigger Stones” with a slight Western big country (American style) flavor and a powerful hook, one to play between your Lobos and Long Ryders records. Jules Shear has a deft pop single in “If She Knew What She Wants,” faintly resembling the Cars’ “My Best Friend’s Girl” and a slowed-down, synthesized “Do You Love Me” by the Contours, but rich in melody and production touches. Little Steven puts his politics on the sleeve of his Dutch-only single, “Vote That Mutha Out,” a full-barrelled attack on the president’s foreign policies. This sort of stereo-topical broadside seldom makes for great art but the raw rock power is effective.

Detour to England, where the Jesus & Mary Chain continue to separate the faint hearts from the fortitudinal. Like "Never Understand,” “You Trip Me Up’”s banshee feedback will drive anyone who wasn’t brought up with White Light/White Heat at high volume right out of the room screaming, but (once again) there’s a surprisingly soft-centered melody line beneath the electrical storm, this one reminding me of “Words Of Love” by Buddy Holly. Fascinating, and also handy for enforcing an early departure time for party guests.

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You’d think Primal Scream would fall into the same trick bag, but the name is deceiving—their sound on “All Fall Down” is a rather fey folk-rock, wimpish but pleasing. “Plastic Flowers” by Mood Six is also a bit effete, but effete of near-brilliance with its brooding violins, distant chiming guitars and a staying-power chorus. “This Boy” by Hurrah! is punchy guitar pop in a slightly gutsier mode, with “Gloria” and “Tame” also standing out on a solid four-track 12-inch. Everything But The Girl continue to impress with the lovely, regret-infused, midtempo “Angel,” the second fine single with that title in recent months (after Madonna’s).

Concluding with some “old masters,” Bryan Ferry’s “Slave To Love” is “More Than This” sideways, but who else can be so mellifluously melancholy? Richard Thompson’s “You Don’t Say” is an atypically blithesounding, jittery speedball of a single, but the live flip, “When The Spell Is Broken,” is definitive stuff: bleak, austere rock with eversurprising melodic twists and soul-chilling guitar lines. And finally, back on the scene in an unlikely alliance with the folks who gave you Frankie Goes To Hollywood (and won’t take them back), Roy Orbison has a single on ZTT called “Wild Hearts.” While I’d love to hear what Trevor Horn could do with the monolith that is Orbison’s voice, this is a straightforward, Nashville-origin Orbisonic ballad, subtly produced with a trademark soaring climax that’s a wondrous sound to behold.