45 REVELATIONS

45 REVELATIONS

Nothing emerged from the pack dramatically enough to run away with Single of the Month honors, but there’s a pleasantly varied pile of songs from many styles and locales. Australia, for instance, contributed two double-sided juggernauts. Died Pretty’s “Stoneage Cinderella” combines a refined garage guitarorgan track with some of the snottiest Dylanstyled sneering since Mouse & The Traps crossed the Rio Grande. The flip, “Yesterday’s Letters.” drones along ominously until the guitars churn up a climactic early Velvets rhythm thrash.

The Crystal Set, meanwhile, sounds like a more lightly-textured Church (Anglicans to Steve Kilbey & Co.’s Catholic tastes; Crystal Set bassist Russell Kilbey, by the way, is his brother) on “Benefit Of The Doubt.” The flip’s “Don’t Be Surprised” is raga-poppy and formidably cool in its own right.

Canada’s Scott Merritt doesn’t sound like anyone I can think of, since the pop world isn’t presently overburdened with social commentating reformed folkies who pit mandolins against baroque string arrangements, atonal fiddle breaks, and yawing Paul Young style basslines. “Overworked & Underprivileged” is a boggier. “Morning Day” on the B-side is a deathly slow but affecting ballad. (Duke Street Records 204 King St. East Suite 101 Toronto Ontario, Canada. M5A 1J7.)

Compatriots the Grapes Of Wrath, produced by Red Rider’s Tom Cochrane (the intellectual Bryan Adams, a neat oversimplification that probably insults both parties), frame the bright rock of “Misunderstanding” in a tapestry of luminous acoustic guitars.

Smart move by the Human League: hiring Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis to write/produce them a sumptuous variation of “Tender Love.” “Human” is very nearly gorgeous enough to be Single of the Month.

Dave Stewart, not the Eurythmics whiz but the guy who with Barbara Gaskin concocted a cushiony Carpenters confection out of the Four Tops’ “I’m In A Different World” last year, tries the same trick with Little Eva’s “Locomotion.” It’s only a partial success, much like the duo’s ambitious failure with “It’s My Party” a while back. What does succeed is the flip a shimmering trad-folkish ballad original called “Make Me Promises,” something like top-of-the-line Clannad.

I’m not sure why I like “Brilliant Mind” by Furniture as much as I do, but this simple | British pop hit captivates owing to the | cumulative effect of hearing its hook line. “You ® must be out of your brilliant mind,” about a > “ hundred times.

f A lot of British pop on independent labels | (just about the only stuff imported into the U.S. ? on 7-inch singles these days) is frustrating to | hear—plenty of jangling guitars but little co» “ herence in the way of riffs hooks or tunes, not | to mention weak production. Mighty Mighty £ solves most of these problems by adding the cheesiest organ available within the Greater Birmingham environs to their guitars and rendering “Everybody Knows The Monkey” refreshingly like “Hanky Panky” in the process. (Girlie Records, 34 Springfield Road, Moseley, Birmingham, B13 0NW, England.) The Razorcuts go it alone with jangly folkrock guitars on “I’ll Still Be There,” but cleverly counterpose a languid adenoidal vocalist, and the resultant suspense over whether they will end up in the same key is riveting. It is a charming record. (The Subway Organisation, c/o Revolver Distribution, The Old Malt House, Little Ann Street, Bristol 2, England. Even the address is charming...)

Exerting much greater control over their guitar jangling are the members of R.E.M., whose “Fall On Me” is exceptional for its vocal clarity and stately grace—a jewel of a single. Let’s Active’s “In Little Ways” is a representative sampler of an endlessly absorbing multidirectional album, baroquedelic to be sure, with a nice acoustic-shrouded poppy non.-LP flip, “Two You’s.”

Tommy Keene is also into acoustic non-LP flips, with “Faith In Love” appearing on the back of both the classy pop-rock U.S. single “Listen To Me” and the earlier, rather fabulous Canadian 45 “Places That Are Gone.” The Bangles have issued “Walk Like An Egyptian,” the most irresistibly goofy song of the year; its nonhit status is a riddle worthy of the Sphinx. Uncle Green has a good line in this month’s flavor (jangling guitars) and some intelligent, complex song structures on “Holes” and “Heaven.” (Twilight Records, PO Box 95265, Atlanta, GA 30347)

BY KEN BARNES

Gail Davies’s last solo album had two of country’s crossover killers (in a more perfect world), “Break Away” and the heavenly “Jagged Edge Of A Broken Heart.” Now she’s lead singer of a group called Wild Choir, and their kickoff single, “Next Time,” is a stunner: solid rock rhythms, shivery harmonies, and a memorable melody. Another nonhit riddle for the old Sphinxter—although Country radio is generally unreceptive to new acts’ first singles. Juice Newton, meanwhile, atones for a few overblown ballads of late by rescuing Del Shannon’s “Cheap Love” from obscurity in a tough rocking treatment.

Barbara Roy, from ’70s disco trio Ecstasy, Passion & Pain, has moved with the times to come up with a no-nonsense, hard as-nails dancer called “Gotta See You Tonight,” powered by some truly nasty synth riffing. Precious Wilson, who used to wear giant butterfly costumes and sing discoized covers of U.S. soul hits, is similarly tough and up-tothe-minute with “Nice Girls Don’t Last.” (Leo Durocher is rooked out of a songwriting credit.) Teena Marie, who can certainly sing tough enough, also can tear the stuffing out of a ballad as she demonstrates on the melodically rich “Love Me Down Easy.”

Eddie Money has an interesting record in “Take Me Home Tonight.” Even beyond the nifty gimmick of singing a chorus of “Just like Ronnie sang...” and then bringing in Ronnie Spector herself to reprise “Be my little baby,” the song’s arrangement ranges from tense synth-pop to basic solid rock and hooks you from the start. Easily his best outside of the great “Shakin’.”

Finally, John Fogerty’s “Eye Of The Zombie” has a great down-and-dirty guitar intro and sound suitably ominous, but why do people bow respectively toward his voodoo mastery and snicker at Roky Erickson (if they notice at all) when he covers the same themes? Talk about your occult heroes. They even sound alike these days. As the B-52’s once said, I’m just asking.