Popdose: Bottom Feeders: The Ass End of the ’80s, Part 40
The Man I Used To Be
· 10 months ago
Very good call on "New Girl Now" being ahead of its time. I would love to hear a good cover done of that song. The tempo always seemed a bit off to me. DId "Feel It Again" crack the top 40 in America? If it did that surprises me.
As for the Hooters, (growing up in Philly as well) I always thought Amore was the strongest effort and had the best song cycle. The over use of the mandolin on the later albums killed them. One Way Home was a train wreck of a Sophomore Slump and sent them packing for Europe to find fans. I always found that puzzling because I know from old live WMMR tapes I had of them, they had 3 or 4 really good songs from the Nervous Night session (i.e. End of My Rope, She Likes It With The Windows Down) that they never recorded that could have charted. (Any idea how I can get a CD/digital copy of some of those Tower Theater recordings?)
Thanks for the post....
steed
· 10 months ago
Yeah, as tvh pointed out below "Feel It Again" hit #34 - their only top 40 in the US. I like the song, but I think it's the worst of the four. Strange how that worked.
If you get a copy of those recordings, think of me - I'd like them myself. I agree with you that Amore is the best Hooters album - though I do like One Way Home too.
Chris X
· 9 months ago
Pretty sure the one I'm getting is from 87 at the Tower, right off the soundboard. I'll get you a copy once it's in my possession.
Eric S.
· 9 months ago
There's a 1985 Tower show at Wolfgang's Vault. There are two songs I don't recognize, "Trouble In Paradise" & "Who's That Girl", plus their famous Cyndi Lauper song, Time After Time".
I think One Way Home is just as good as Nervous Night. Unless you just mean commercially, in which case you're obviously right. But come on, some of the songs on OWH are pure gems, and some of the best tunes they ever wrote: "Satellite" "Johnny B." "Karla with a K" (I will say, I prefer the original reggae/ska version of "Fightin On the Same Side" from Amore though) I'm actually in the process of acquiring an old live set, direct from the soundboard, I'll gladly hook you up with a copy once I get it; shoot me an email (and if you come across any others, I'd love to get a copy-heck, even of your old cassettes!)
Jeff
· 10 months ago
I bought In the Eye of the Storm based on Had a Dream (and the great video that went with it), and while I never got into the whole album, that song still rocks.
And so does New Girl Now. For some reason I always get Honeymoon Suite and Romeo Void mixed up in my head.
tvh
· 10 months ago
I forgot all about "Feel It Again" - great tune. I just looked it up and apparently it went to #34 in the US. Very surprising.
luffy66
· 10 months ago
Actually that whole album from Honeymoon Suite "The Big Prize" was very good. As a bonus one of the songs "All Along We Knew" featured an Ian Anderson flute solo- Kewl!
I think the House of Lords album claim to fame was the first ever to be recorded digitally.
David_E
· 10 months ago
Assuming there's room for three in the Rupert Holmes Fan Club -- and that's not an assumption I'm comfortable making -- I'd like to join as Treasurer or Snack Committee Leader or something. For me, though, "Him" edges out "Answering Machine." (Just rereading what I've typed here made one of my testicles re-ascend into my body.)
Honeymoon Suite could have been "the Def Leppard of Canada" if they played their cards right. (Beats being "the Loverboy of Canada." ... Wait ...)
Love love love "Long Way Home." "Karla With A K" is awesome, and to this day, I think "Satellite" is the Hooters' best song. I always grin at Rob's snicker in the background when Eric sings "... and should you Fall,well that's okay ..."
And you left off part of your last write-up "... Gene Simmons, who immediately fired their lead singer and changed the band’s name to House of Lords and shoved a metric ton of processed cheese into the band's sound."
Great write up today. Thanks.
DwDunphy
· 10 months ago
Assuming there's room for four in the Rupert Holmes Fan Club, I'd like to join as the Loyal Opposition. Blech. Sorry guys but, y'know, blech!
RLB
· 10 months ago
I'm with the "One Way Home" lovers. Can't shake the effect it had on me as a 15-year-old moping around the streets of a leafy suburb on cold nights.
arensb
· 10 months ago
[Scrolls ahead to see what the best and worst songs are]
Wow. There's worse than Jennifer Holliday still to come?
I love the Bottom Feeders series. Every so often, it'll contain an underappreciated gem. A lot of the time, however, there's a good reason the songs never made the top 50.
arensb
· 9 months ago
Ooh, I hadn't heard "All You Zombies" in years. Didn't recognize the title, even.
But what's up with the title? Here I am, expecting something about time travel and kinky sex, and instead I get a bunch of references to Exodus and Genesis. What the hell? And zombies don't even show up until the New Testament!
Malchus
· 9 months ago
"What'll It Take" will always remind me of John Cusack and Demi Moore falling in love while Bobcat Goldthwait and the late Tom Villard looked on. Ah, that really was one crazy summer, huh?
WHarrisBullzEye
· 9 months ago
You know, I had no idea Tom Villard had died...though, to be fair, I hadn't thought about Tom Villard in years until the other day, when I was writing up something about "We Got It Made" for Bullz-Eye.
Pete
· 9 months ago
Opinion is definitely relative, as I find "All You Zombies" a real snooze....but then again, I never got into the Hooters back then either.
wardo
· 9 months ago
Wow...the letter H had a lot going for it back then. Except for Rupert Holmes of course. Thanks for sharing these!
Dominion
· 9 months ago
Roger Hodgson is performing in Lima, Peru today!
MarlboroTestMonkey7
· 9 months ago
The featured song sounds ABBAish to me. If you are going to see him, ask him to return to Supertramp. Thanks
jefito
· 9 months ago
He's tried. Rick Davies is a cock.
Eric S.
· 9 months ago
That collection of Honeymoon Suite and Hooters songs is probably the strongest back to back pairing of the series so far.
I thought "Wave Babies" by Honeymoon Suite and "Where Do the Children Go" by The Hooters were both singles. Did they not chart? I don't remember them being big enough to be Top 40.
steed
· 9 months ago
"Where Do The Children Go" - peaked at #38. "Wave Babies" was the single right before "Feel it Again" and it only charted in Canada it seems.
Old_Davy
· 9 months ago
This is one of the best Bottom Feeders yet. Those Honeymoon Suite tracks are really good, as well as the stuff form the Hooters. The Roger Hodgson track is terrific (I like that whole album as well). Isn't the first Bruce Hornsby record mostly his demos that RCA felt were better than the recordings done with the Range, and so RCA put the demos on the album instead? I seem to remember a story like that. Even that High Inergy song was pretty good and I'm not a big fan of dance music.
As far as the rest of the chart, Rupert Holmes, Dan Hill and Hotel are all pleasant but snoozers, and the rest really suck it.
I'd definitely nominate that cover of "Not Fade Away" as the worst song of the week. Man, that one is a real stinker! It sounds like a demo record of what sound effects he can get out of his new Casio keyboard.
Chris X
· 9 months ago
thoughts on this week's list, or "Chris X drools over the Hooters for several paragraphs, and maybe says something about one or two of the other songs"
I absolutely cannot believe "All You Zombies" charted so low. I feel like it got just as much, if not more, airplay as "And we Danced" and "Day By Day." I mean, you ask the average dude to rattle off the first 3 Hooters songs that come to mind, that's gotta be the holy trinity, right? When I saw it on the Bottom Feeders list, I was prepared to read that the original Amore version charted so low, and then the Nervous Night redux came back and ruled the top 10 for many weeks. Imagine my surprise. My perspective on all things Hooters is probably skewed by the fact that I am from Philly, and thus heard a lot more of them than the folks in other markets(except maybe Germany, they have Hooters tribute bands over there and everything!) But I mean, I remember some of their songs getting so much airplay back then that didnt even make the Bottom Feeders cut("Hangin' On a Heartbeat" and "Where Do the Children Go" come to mind, and I remember them being played more than I ever remember hearing "Johnny B.", "Satellite", or "500 Miles"), so I'm assuming it was only the local airwaves they were dominating.
I can say for sure that they always were, and to this day remain one of my all time favorite bands (I just listened to the first 4 albums in their entirety this afternoon) A band I've made a point to collect their entire discography on vinyl. A band that is hands down the most fun live act I've ever witnessed - they play an annual Thanksgiving show here each year, and I've gone the past 3 years - never a letdown, and incredible setlists everytime. Their last studio album, Time Stand Still, is fantastic, as is the double live disc they just dropped(featuring one of the aforementioned Thanksgiving gigs and a live acoustic studio set) I'd encourage anyone who has not, to check out the great interview with Eric Bazilian that is on this very site!
So yeah, there were some other songs this week too, huh? Let's see. Jennifer Holliday? No thanks. I'm forever biased by that horrible, horrible cover of The A's (speaking of other great Philly bands from that era!) "Woman's Got the Power" that she spit out back in the day, and refuse to even give her a shot. Unless it's a shot in the ass while she's standing on the edge of a cliff. Dan Hill. Oh god, is "Can't We Try" not the whiniest song you ever heard? I remember being 10-11 years old when that was all over the airwaves, and I wanted to slap and/or choke that guy out even then. Come on Dan, grow a set! I vaguely recall "Never Thought" from back then too, and can safely say that when it comes to dudes named Dan with the last initial H., Dan Hartman and "I Can Dream About You" win every time! I will always have a soft spot for Bruce Hornsby, especially his first two albums (assuming The Way It Is was his first? I never heard of the guy before that; then again, I was in 5th grade when it was released, so what wold i know?) "Every Little Kiss" is a great tune, but the other two singles from that record are obviously far superior. Love his piano sound though; so much that even at a young age, the first time I heard Don Henley's "end of the Innocence" I thought it was Bruce til the vocals kicked in, and until years later when I read the credits, always said, "man, Don Henley is great, why does he need to rip off Bruce Hornsby?" haha.
Would I be correct in assuming next week's synth pop group once worked in cocktail bar? Possibly when they met you?
The Man I Used To Be
· 9 months ago
Wow - "Wave Babies" thanks for the reminder, what a great cheesy mid-80s track.
I have to say that the first 30 seconds of "Every Little Kiss" is splendid. That piano intro has been on a constant loop on my iPod for the past 24 hours.
Surprised no one is with me on the "One Way Home" mis-step by the Hooters. They could have jumped to the next level with a more straightforward Rock effort as the follow-up of Nervous Night. The crutch of that mandolin sound killed them. I remember watching them perform during the Amnesty International tour (between albums) and they had the audience in the palm of their hands. If memory servers they did a surreal cover of "Lucy In The Sky" which sounded like "Where Do The Children Go" during those shows and they seemed poised to take off. Then they delivered a bloody Chieftains album to the rock masses. Bad times....
Chris X
· 9 months ago
I think you'd have to respect them more for doing their own thing instead of churning out a by-the-numbers rock record for mass consumption and critical success.
The Man I Used To Be
· 9 months ago
Chris X - I respect them for doing just what you said but, I personally felt that the folk sound they created was over done for the follow-up. The leap in sound from Amore to OWH is alarming. I would think that a balance of Mandolin Rock with classic guitar rock would have paid off nicely for them. My case in point would have to be REM's Out of Time and Automatic For The People. Those albums have that balance that I am speaking of. I am not comparing REM to the Hooters here (I think we know which band is more influential) just their evolutions. OWH would have benefited from a little bit more Nervous Night and a little less Chieftains that's all.
BTW - I think they did this with the Albums Zig Zag and Out of Body. It was just 2 albums too late. To paraphrase Carl Wilson, OHW was a bunt single when the Philly audience was looking for a home run.
Eric S.
· 9 months ago
I have to agree that The Hooters blew a golden opportunity. I appreciate "One Way Home" now, but when it came out it was too different from what originally got them airplay. As a result, the album got ignored and the band never got the credit they deserved.
Keith
· 9 months ago
Apparently there is much love for Honeymoon Suite, and I'm right there with ya. I remember "Bad Attitude", also from The Big Prize, being big on the local AOR station. I confessed a couple of weeks ago that I kept my own chart of favorites during the early to mid 80's. In addition, I would "release" album tracks as singles as I deemed necessary, allowing them to chart as well. So, I can appreciate the Def Leppard comparison, as The Big Prize spawned several singles which charted for me. The most notable was a track called "Wounded" which peaked in my Top 10. I imagine economics dictated how many singles would be released from albums, but I never understood how so many killer album tracks would go unreleased back then. Some of my all time favorite songs were never singles. I always thought I could do a better job at that.
drcastrato
· 9 months ago
Uh, I didn't think the Hot Chocolate song was THAT bad. I mean, bad, yes, and certainly not good. But I'd listen to it over Dan Hill or a lot of previous entries in this series if only because it reminds me of You Sexy Thing. And I could picture myself strutting around the bedroom singing it to my wife. "Are you gettin enough - HAPPINESS?!?!"
Ray
· 9 months ago
Hard to believe that Roger Hodgson track didn't crack the nationwide Top 40. I remember it getting quite a bit of airplay on the rock stations in Chicago at the tail end of 1984 (pretty sure it cracked the Top 20 on WLS, too!).
luffy66
· 9 months ago
MTV played it almost constantly, so I was surprised too.
Leon
· 9 months ago
House of Lords music video - 3:10 mark - Intense microphone flip
Shane
· 3 months ago
Did the files get removed? I can't download them. Really wanted Hotel's Half Moon Silver.
All Comments
As for the Hooters, (growing up in Philly as well) I always thought Amore was the strongest effort and had the best song cycle. The over use of the mandolin on the later albums killed them. One Way Home was a train wreck of a Sophomore Slump and sent them packing for Europe to find fans. I always found that puzzling because I know from old live WMMR tapes I had of them, they had 3 or 4 really good songs from the Nervous Night session (i.e. End of My Rope, She Likes It With The Windows Down) that they never recorded that could have charted. (Any idea how I can get a CD/digital copy of some of those Tower Theater recordings?)
Thanks for the post....
If you get a copy of those recordings, think of me - I'd like them myself. I agree with you that Amore is the best Hooters album - though I do like One Way Home too.
http://concerts.wolfgangsvault.com/dt/the-hoote...
And so does New Girl Now. For some reason I always get Honeymoon Suite and Romeo Void mixed up in my head.
As a bonus one of the songs "All Along We Knew" featured an Ian Anderson flute solo- Kewl!
I think the House of Lords album claim to fame was the first ever to be recorded digitally.
Honeymoon Suite could have been "the Def Leppard of Canada" if they played their cards right. (Beats being "the Loverboy of Canada." ... Wait ...)
Love love love "Long Way Home." "Karla With A K" is awesome, and to this day, I think "Satellite" is the Hooters' best song. I always grin at Rob's snicker in the background when Eric sings "... and should you Fall,well that's okay ..."
And you left off part of your last write-up "... Gene Simmons, who immediately fired their lead singer and changed the band’s name to House of Lords and shoved a metric ton of processed cheese into the band's sound."
Great write up today. Thanks.
Wow. There's worse than Jennifer Holliday still to come?
I love the Bottom Feeders series. Every so often, it'll contain an underappreciated gem. A lot of the time, however, there's a good reason the songs never made the top 50.
But what's up with the title? Here I am, expecting something about time travel and kinky sex, and instead I get a bunch of references to Exodus and Genesis. What the hell? And zombies don't even show up until the New Testament!
Thanks
I thought "Wave Babies" by Honeymoon Suite and "Where Do the Children Go" by The Hooters were both singles. Did they not chart? I don't remember them being big enough to be Top 40.
"Wave Babies" was the single right before "Feel it Again" and it only charted in Canada it seems.
As far as the rest of the chart, Rupert Holmes, Dan Hill and Hotel are all pleasant but snoozers, and the rest really suck it.
I'd definitely nominate that cover of "Not Fade Away" as the worst song of the week. Man, that one is a real stinker! It sounds like a demo record of what sound effects he can get out of his new Casio keyboard.
I absolutely cannot believe "All You Zombies" charted so low. I feel like it got just as much, if not more, airplay as "And we Danced" and "Day By Day." I mean, you ask the average dude to rattle off the first 3 Hooters songs that come to mind, that's gotta be the holy trinity, right? When I saw it on the Bottom Feeders list, I was prepared to read that the original Amore version charted so low, and then the Nervous Night redux came back and ruled the top 10 for many weeks. Imagine my surprise. My perspective on all things Hooters is probably skewed by the fact that I am from Philly, and thus heard a lot more of them than the folks in other markets(except maybe Germany, they have Hooters tribute bands over there and everything!) But I mean, I remember some of their songs getting so much airplay back then that didnt even make the Bottom Feeders cut("Hangin' On a Heartbeat" and "Where Do the Children Go" come to mind, and I remember them being played more than I ever remember hearing "Johnny B.", "Satellite", or "500 Miles"), so I'm assuming it was only the local airwaves they were dominating.
I can say for sure that they always were, and to this day remain one of my all time favorite bands (I just listened to the first 4 albums in their entirety this afternoon) A band I've made a point to collect their entire discography on vinyl. A band that is hands down the most fun live act I've ever witnessed - they play an annual Thanksgiving show here each year, and I've gone the past 3 years - never a letdown, and incredible setlists everytime. Their last studio album, Time Stand Still, is fantastic, as is the double live disc they just dropped(featuring one of the aforementioned Thanksgiving gigs and a live acoustic studio set) I'd encourage anyone who has not, to check out the great interview with Eric Bazilian that is on this very site!
So yeah, there were some other songs this week too, huh? Let's see. Jennifer Holliday? No thanks. I'm forever biased by that horrible, horrible cover of The A's (speaking of other great Philly bands from that era!) "Woman's Got the Power" that she spit out back in the day, and refuse to even give her a shot. Unless it's a shot in the ass while she's standing on the edge of a cliff. Dan Hill. Oh god, is "Can't We Try" not the whiniest song you ever heard? I remember being 10-11 years old when that was all over the airwaves, and I wanted to slap and/or choke that guy out even then. Come on Dan, grow a set! I vaguely recall "Never Thought" from back then too, and can safely say that when it comes to dudes named Dan with the last initial H., Dan Hartman and "I Can Dream About You" win every time! I will always have a soft spot for Bruce Hornsby, especially his first two albums (assuming The Way It Is was his first? I never heard of the guy before that; then again, I was in 5th grade when it was released, so what wold i know?) "Every Little Kiss" is a great tune, but the other two singles from that record are obviously far superior. Love his piano sound though; so much that even at a young age, the first time I heard Don Henley's "end of the Innocence" I thought it was Bruce til the vocals kicked in, and until years later when I read the credits, always said, "man, Don Henley is great, why does he need to rip off Bruce Hornsby?" haha.
Would I be correct in assuming next week's synth pop group once worked in cocktail bar? Possibly when they met you?
I have to say that the first 30 seconds of "Every Little Kiss" is splendid. That piano intro has been on a constant loop on my iPod for the past 24 hours.
Surprised no one is with me on the "One Way Home" mis-step by the Hooters. They could have jumped to the next level with a more straightforward Rock effort as the follow-up of Nervous Night. The crutch of that mandolin sound killed them. I remember watching them perform during the Amnesty International tour (between albums) and they had the audience in the palm of their hands. If memory servers they did a surreal cover of "Lucy In The Sky" which sounded like "Where Do The Children Go" during those shows and they seemed poised to take off. Then they delivered a bloody Chieftains album to the rock masses. Bad times....
BTW - I think they did this with the Albums Zig Zag and Out of Body. It was just 2 albums too late. To paraphrase Carl Wilson, OHW was a bunt single when the Philly audience was looking for a home run.