Daily Mael 1983

Very Devo with a little bit of Chris Montez thrown in. Harmless and a tad bland, but still another ear worm. “Ready, get set, workout!”

From the soundtrack of the movie Where The Boys Are ’84, a more or less straightforward little rocker dedicated to the marvels of the mini-skirt. “I’m no hick and I’m no prude, but any less, and you’d be nude.”

Extremely Devo-ish but a bit more meccanik. It slowly worms its way into your brain. In a good way. The superficial is highlighted again with the hedonistic manifesto: ‘I like clubs, I like girls, I like music. And that’s it.’ There’s a compelling coldness about it all.

Kraftwerk lite again. You get the jist early on and you’re not really dying for more, so it probably could’ve faded out half way through. The fact they arrived on a cream pie, mind you, ties in neatly with the cover shot of the In Outer Space album.

Fine pop nonsense much enhanced by Jane Wiedlin again adding a sweet touch to a fairly saccharin tune with a sombre outcome for the sarcastic couple ‘voted most likely to fail.’

Very Let’s Dance by Chris Montez this one. Perky toytown rock and roll about exactly what it says in the title. ‘I guess I look slightly worse than the Elephant Man.’ And so on. Oh oh oh

This has a faux naive (i.e. self-knowing) charm about it and a bunch of clichéd rock n roll poses starting with the self introduction, the ‘c’mon baby’ a la Jerry Lee Lewis, and saying ‘it’s instrumental time.’ Some la la las thrown in for good measure too.

Another pedestrian pop by numbers number. All this pleasantness is making me itch. There’s no faulting the production or clinical delivery, but there’s also no tingle quotient whatsoever. Best line – ‘You no speakee the language when I get near.’

An interesting start with multiple handclaps sounding like castanets. Well, sort of. It grates a bit. But, the hi-NRG music’s lively enough to keep you interested and the listing of places they’ve had sex is quite amusing, particularly ‘in that museum, beneath the Mastodon.’

Hoo boy, I think they’re taking the piss now. More bland AOR soft plasticine. I mean, it’s not dreadful, but it’s just… bland. Lacking the killer punch. Time in general has not been good to a lot of eighties music and this is certainly not disproving that. The admonishing father voice is probably the best bit.

Classic simplistic electro pop. Never veers from the basic template, just adds bits after each verse/chorus. To say it’s undemanding is an understatement, but it’s pleasant enough and the superficialty fits the theme.

Featuring The Go Go’s Jane Wiedlin making it instantly more cool. They make a great duet. Harmless 80s fluff, but it’s no Rush Hour. Does the job. Nice ‘Where’s the cool places?’ echoey ending too.

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1967 – 1969