Popdose: Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 13
jabartlett
· 1 year ago
I had forgotten how horrid "I Love My Truck" is. I am sure I hadn't heard it since my radio station stopped playing it in 1981, much to the delight of the DJs, who had been forced to play it far more often than we liked because the audience kept calling up wanting to hear it.
And people still wonder why radio stations don't take requests.
outsidecounsel
· 1 year ago
"Eddie and the Cruisers", John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, and Ellen Barkin all have this in common-- you wish that each was just a little bit better. John Cafferty could have been John Mellencamp. Mellencamp had the sense to drop the ridiculous "John Cougar" moniker. If Cafferty had had someone to tell him that "The Beaver Brown Band" was a stupid name, maybe he could have become more than just a Springsteen manqué too.
"Eddie and the Cruisers" might have been perfectly awful, and a lot of it is, but some of it is pretty good. It helps, somewhat, that the music the Cruisers play, back in 1963, sounds quite a bit like the music Bruce Springsteen was playing around 1983, when the movie was released. That was part of the film's gimmick, actually. It is a funny sort of thing to think about, in a way. When Jon Landau wrote "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen," back in '74 he couldn't have been more wrong, but don't tell that to "Eddie and the Cruisers". The fact is that Bruce was never the future of anything, and has always really been at his best, both lyrically and musically, when he works with nostalgia. Springsteen was an agglomeration of influences that emerged at a time when the R&B roots of rock had gone missing. The effect was a tonic to anyone who had grown exhausted trying to find rock with some lilt and some swing, but really it was nothing new, and really he was working a mine that was mostly played out. Sure, there were still nuggets to be picked up there, but consider the question of Springsteen's influence. Who followed? Thin Lizzy. Melissa Etheridge. Meatloaf. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. In a funny way, what "Eddie and the Cruisers" really establishes is that Springsteen was, far from the future of rock'n'roll, actually rock'n'roll circa 1964. That's certainly not a bad thing to be.
And Ellen Barkin. Maybe the biggest failing of "Eddie and the Cruisers" is that she doesn't show any leg, but let's move past that and consider her career. She's worked steady, and she is always good, but it is rare indeed for her to appear in a movie that is worthy of her talents. "This Boy's Life" and "Diner" are just about the only truly times we've seen all that she can do. I love "The Big Easy" but it falls apart and ends like a made for TV movie. "Buckaroo Banzai" is painfully bad. And really, after that she is just under-used.
JonCummings
· 1 year ago
Huh?
As I recall it, every American band that came down the pike with crunchy guitar chords and "the truth" was considered a follower of Springsteen from the mid-'70s through the '80s. Mellencamp himself was widely considered a Springsteen wannabe until Lisa Germano brought a fiddle into his life on "Scarecrow." Even today, bands like the Hold Steady are thought to be massively influenced by him.
Cafferty was perhaps just the most blatant soundalike. The fortunes of those soundtrack songs mirrored the movie's own fortunes. The film flopped in the theaters, and the few spins that "On the Dark Side" received at the time got a dismissive, jokey response. But then, nine months or so later, the movie debuted on HBO and got enormous ratings--and the soundtrack leaped up the charts. It was considered a very big deal at the time--the first time that pay-cable exposure had launched a soundtrack or a batch of chart hits. Hollywood thought such second-chance hits would become a big trend. They were wrong.
jefito
· 1 year ago
John Cafferty the most blatant Springsteen soundalike? John Eddie takes umbrage -- extreme umbrage! -- at that statement, sir.
DwDunphy
· 1 year ago
John Cafferty, John Eddie, John Edwards. All the same but only one knows where you lost your keys.
Oooooooo, spooky.
battery
· 1 year ago
[…]Good Tool.When you have number of blog..so it really helpful to share article,link,bookmarks and more..[…]
hemisphire
· 1 year ago
I'll second your pick for best song, I've always liked that one.
DavidMedsker
· 1 year ago
You're right that there is no real difference between Depeche Mode and "The Great Commandment," but I love that song anyway. And that Candi song is the most freestyle-less freestyle song I've ever heard. Very 1988, though.
I'm surprised that nothing from the Call's Reconciled album charted. No "I Still Believe"? No "Everywhere I Go"? Those songs were awesome.
steed
· 1 year ago
No, those were the only 2 Hot 100 songs from The Call - both the songs you mentioned were on the rock charts - but they didn't even do that great there - as "I Still Believe" only barely cracked the Top 20 I think.
Elaine
· 1 year ago
"The Walls Came Down" vocal makes Michael sounds like a little like David Byrne's older brother.
thefxc
· 1 year ago
Yes! Great list!
"Great Commandment", yes, very Mode-y, but they developed from there, doing synthpop with a bit more...pop. They're still around and worth hearing.
The John Cafferty list makes me wonder: who had the MOST bottom-feeding songs in the 80s? Are you saving that for the end of the list? I was a bit surprised here--I knew "On the Dark Side" made Top 10 when reissued, but I would have bet a million bucks that "Voice of America's Sons" and "Hearts on Fire" made Top 40. And I thought "C.I.T.Y." missed Top 40, but I guess it made it? I guess that was the year I lived in LandBackwardsCrazy.
Never knew Candi=Candi and the Backbeat--I may be the only one in the world who cares, but I have a cool Candi/Backbeat song from an old IRS comp, now I know a bit more about them...
Thanks again! I always look forward to this column...
steed
· 1 year ago
C.I.T.Y. peaked at #18. Just last night, TBS aired the Family Guy episode where Brian trains like he's Rocky and "Heart's On Fire" plays as the montage. It's used so much now that it's been burned in my head - and yours I suppose too.
As for who had the most - nope, just going alphabetical and honestly, I don't know myself - though I think I might check in a minute. Right now it stands at 8 Bottom Feeders with Bananarama, though I'll tell you that next week I have another artist with 8. That's the most we've seen so far.
steed
· 1 year ago
Whoops, actually it's a couple weeks down the road for the 8 - but I swear it's coming!
MatthewBolin
· 1 year ago
I've been doing some checking on that very subject, and the highest I've gotten so far is also eight: Both Queen and Kenny Rogers had that many among the "big" acts of that era. That might be where it tops out, but I'll keep checking, now that my curiosity is sparked.
steed
· 1 year ago
No spoilers now here sir!!! :)
I looked and I can tell you it does not top out there. There are three artists with 9 and one with 10. But I'm not revealing who!
JohnHughes
· 1 year ago
While "You Make Me Work" is horrid, yes, "She's Strange" continues to be the jam, two decades after it took over my high school my sophomore year.
scrumble
· 1 year ago
Good call on Candi, she was actually the future of rock 'n' roll according to Miles Copeland of I.R.S. Records, who was smarting from the loss of R.E.M.
A girl who looked like her would also never last three seconds in the age of bitchy gossip blogs.
"Under Your Spell" was a good follow-up single, although they fumbled on the second album. The "& the Backbeat" thing kinda killed it, not to mention a Madonna knock-off sound that was five years out of date by then. http://youtube.com/watch?v=XUC3hvTXdr0
Matt
· 1 year ago
AFI spinoff Blaqk Audio had a semi-hit last year with a song called "Stiff Kittens" that was basically a straight lift of "The Great Commandment". And how was "Let the Day Begin" never co-opted by Budweiser?
the masked collector
· 1 year ago
Say, you just left the "B"'s - why no Billy & the Beaters?
Or are you saving them for the "V"'s?
"At This Moment" was #1 for Billy VERA & the Beaters in '87, but I think charted lower for "Billy & the Beaters" in '81. Same recording, same band, slightly different name.
steed
· 1 year ago
Yeah, I have him lumped under "V" for Vera in my list, so we're going to save him/them for that - though you're right, he probably deserved to be the B's since what you said above is spot on.
the masked collector
· 1 year ago
"Freddy Cannon & the Belmonts “Let’s Put the Fun Back in Rock ‘n Roll” Here’s a classic example of a song that just doesn’t belong in the ‘80s. The Belmonts have made music since the late ‘50s and this track still sounds like it belongs in 1963. "
I think that was the POINT, actually
the masked collector
· 1 year ago
Come to think of it, this Freddy Cannon/Belmonts record doesn't sound all that different from John Cafferty & the Beaver Brown Band, who had a definite retro sound...what goes around comes around & all that.
My hmphs
· 1 year ago
Wait - there was an "Eddie and the Cruisers II"? That title sounds like a Nightmare on Elm Street Sequel. I'd much prefer "Eddie and the Cruisers II - Electric Boogaloo."
Elaine
· 1 year ago
I'm currently giving those Glen Campbell tracks a listen. Wow, is that Truck song a POS. Thing is, I'm sort of surprised some country beta male with a huge hat that shades all ability to see his eyes hasn't remade it by now. On the other hand, Glen sure was in fine voice in the late 70's. With the second one, though, was he trying to resurrect the Bakersfield sound or something? He sounds like he was trying to be Buck Owens.
Ray
· 1 year ago
I remember The Great Commandment getting quite a bit of airplay on MTV in early 1989 (mostly on 120 Minutes and Post Modern); still have the CD somewhere.
rwcass
· 1 year ago
"Coming Down From Love" is terrifically smooth '80s pop-soul. I thought the opening piano part sounded familiar -- Murs and 9th Wonder sampled it for their song "Barbershop" in '06.
Ken
· 1 year ago
Still, it’s hard to argue with 45 million records sold and a spot in the Country Music Hall of Fame.(Glen Campbell)
And now the fact that his new Record "Meet Glen Campbell" kicks ass,..I love this record.
All Comments
And people still wonder why radio stations don't take requests.
"Eddie and the Cruisers" might have been perfectly awful, and a lot of it is, but some of it is pretty good. It helps, somewhat, that the music the Cruisers play, back in 1963, sounds quite a bit like the music Bruce Springsteen was playing around 1983, when the movie was released. That was part of the film's gimmick, actually. It is a funny sort of thing to think about, in a way. When Jon Landau wrote "I saw rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen," back in '74 he couldn't have been more wrong, but don't tell that to "Eddie and the Cruisers". The fact is that Bruce was never the future of anything, and has always really been at his best, both lyrically and musically, when he works with nostalgia. Springsteen was an agglomeration of influences that emerged at a time when the R&B roots of rock had gone missing. The effect was a tonic to anyone who had grown exhausted trying to find rock with some lilt and some swing, but really it was nothing new, and really he was working a mine that was mostly played out. Sure, there were still nuggets to be picked up there, but consider the question of Springsteen's influence. Who followed? Thin Lizzy. Melissa Etheridge. Meatloaf. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. In a funny way, what "Eddie and the Cruisers" really establishes is that Springsteen was, far from the future of rock'n'roll, actually rock'n'roll circa 1964. That's certainly not a bad thing to be.
And Ellen Barkin. Maybe the biggest failing of "Eddie and the Cruisers" is that she doesn't show any leg, but let's move past that and consider her career. She's worked steady, and she is always good, but it is rare indeed for her to appear in a movie that is worthy of her talents. "This Boy's Life" and "Diner" are just about the only truly times we've seen all that she can do. I love "The Big Easy" but it falls apart and ends like a made for TV movie. "Buckaroo Banzai" is painfully bad. And really, after that she is just under-used.
As I recall it, every American band that came down the pike with crunchy guitar chords and "the truth" was considered a follower of Springsteen from the mid-'70s through the '80s. Mellencamp himself was widely considered a Springsteen wannabe until Lisa Germano brought a fiddle into his life on "Scarecrow." Even today, bands like the Hold Steady are thought to be massively influenced by him.
Cafferty was perhaps just the most blatant soundalike. The fortunes of those soundtrack songs mirrored the movie's own fortunes. The film flopped in the theaters, and the few spins that "On the Dark Side" received at the time got a dismissive, jokey response. But then, nine months or so later, the movie debuted on HBO and got enormous ratings--and the soundtrack leaped up the charts. It was considered a very big deal at the time--the first time that pay-cable exposure had launched a soundtrack or a batch of chart hits. Hollywood thought such second-chance hits would become a big trend. They were wrong.
Oooooooo, spooky.
I'm surprised that nothing from the Call's Reconciled album charted. No "I Still Believe"? No "Everywhere I Go"? Those songs were awesome.
"Great Commandment", yes, very Mode-y, but they developed from there, doing synthpop with a bit more...pop. They're still around and worth hearing.
The John Cafferty list makes me wonder: who had the MOST bottom-feeding songs in the 80s? Are you saving that for the end of the list? I was a bit surprised here--I knew "On the Dark Side" made Top 10 when reissued, but I would have bet a million bucks that "Voice of America's Sons" and "Hearts on Fire" made Top 40. And I thought "C.I.T.Y." missed Top 40, but I guess it made it? I guess that was the year I lived in LandBackwardsCrazy.
Never knew Candi=Candi and the Backbeat--I may be the only one in the world who cares, but I have a cool Candi/Backbeat song from an old IRS comp, now I know a bit more about them...
Thanks again! I always look forward to this column...
Just last night, TBS aired the Family Guy episode where Brian trains like he's Rocky and "Heart's On Fire" plays as the montage. It's used so much now that it's been burned in my head - and yours I suppose too.
As for who had the most - nope, just going alphabetical and honestly, I don't know myself - though I think I might check in a minute. Right now it stands at 8 Bottom Feeders with Bananarama, though I'll tell you that next week I have another artist with 8. That's the most we've seen so far.
I looked and I can tell you it does not top out there. There are three artists with 9 and one with 10. But I'm not revealing who!
A girl who looked like her would also never last three seconds in the age of bitchy gossip blogs.
"Under Your Spell" was a good follow-up single, although they fumbled on the second album. The "& the Backbeat" thing kinda killed it, not to mention a Madonna knock-off sound that was five years out of date by then.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=XUC3hvTXdr0
Or are you saving them for the "V"'s?
"At This Moment" was #1 for Billy VERA & the Beaters in '87, but I think charted lower for "Billy & the Beaters" in '81. Same recording, same band, slightly different name.
“Let’s Put the Fun Back in Rock ‘n Roll”
Here’s a classic example of a song that just doesn’t belong in the ‘80s. The Belmonts have made music since the late ‘50s and this track still sounds like it belongs in 1963. "
I think that was the POINT, actually
And now the fact that his new Record "Meet Glen Campbell" kicks ass,..I love this record.