Quote:
Originally Posted by Holerbot6000
Funny how different your perspective can be. I was in High School when the first Tubes album came out and we adopted 'White Punks on Dope' as our unofficial class anthem. Actually got sent to the Principles office once for playing it as our basketball team took the floor during a tourney. The first three albums were kind of fun/eccentric; very glammy and the musicians were obviously very good. Bill Spooner, Prairie Prince and Mingo Lewis were all featured on various avant rock albums of the time (including 'My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'). And then they started chasing the hit record and became infinitely less interesting. 'Remote Control' - Todd took a ton of **** for that one because he basically made a Todd Rundgren album with Fee Waybill on vocals, and then Completion Backwards was just a complete sellout, an awful awful record, which, of course was the most popular thing they've ever done. I've gone back and listened to a few things and their music was very much of a time and place and doesn't really hold up very well. I'm sure they're still fun to see live, but I think the best thing they ever did really was that picture of naked Re Styles in the inner tubes.
if i had to vote for best Tubes song, it would probably be 'Space Baby'.
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Actually, I think it was Inside/Outside that became their biggest hit -
She's a Beauty was on that. Completion Backwards was understandable, seeing Remote Control go into the cut outs in quick time and being on a new label after being dumped by A&M, and having a sense of humor about it was cool (Re: The SCTV clip), but then what came next sounded bland to me. The video possibly made it more of a hit than anything else in my opinion. The David Foster Production era had at least one good album, so I can't totally knock it down, but I'm not too much of a listener of it either.
I remember Love Bomb (1985 - returning to Rundgren for the Production?) and thinking that a break was in need, although "Piece by Piece" was a passable Pop tune. Oddly enough I still remember watching some Music Show from 1984 that had a brief interview with Fee when he released his solo Read My Lips, which was made shortly before Love Bomb.