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Old 06-09-2013, 03:20 PM   #10 (permalink)
Screen13
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THE ROMANTICS - NATIONAL BREAKOUT

Year: December, 1980
Label: Nemperor
Genre: Popped Out
It may not have been a C/O bin find due to Columbia/CBS association, but it under performed in the style of many cut outs.

After mentioning what they liked about you and before they talked in their sleep, the Romantics had a troubled time, but not without some good music (before their lawsuit filled other troubled time in the Late 80's). This was the mark of the death of Power Pop in The US.

The event of the Second Album drop off was a serious one in the days of record buying in stores. Create a defining first hit, in this case "What I Like About You", and be a part of a fleeting Pop Moment, in this case Skinny Tie Power Pop, and you could just imagine the public moving on when your next voice was heard. In 1980, the image of Power Pop was certainly over and done with especially when The Knack's second album went only Gold with no major hits, so for many of these bands who were either part of the Skinny Tie Brigade or just lumped in as The Romantics were with their Detroit sounds, it was time to worry even if the sound was made of stronger stuff.

Those who supported the band even before singing the contract, knowing of their support from Bomp! Magazine early on, were possibly a little worried, and those who bought this knew that their style of music was falling out of favor in the business although not the listeners at it's best. The album's cover was also not as sharp - no iconic leather suits (In Heat's cover returned them quickly to the charts), looking like a bunch of guys on the street, trying to break out from that Skinny Tie Band image even if it was better than most - may have had some say "You don't want to sell records anymore, do you?" although the listener knew better. Damned if they did, damned if they did not again, it seems, and while the vinyl was alright, you can tell the slight state they were in by that time as they tried to live up to an iconic hit.



"A Night Like This", the epic fifth song on Side One, was the album's strongest point, although it was mainly in the markets where the band was already accepted including Detroit's land of AOR Rock stations that had some influence through that time. Sadly, it was not enough to get the album noticed beyond a devoted fan base.

Recorded in a major hurry, possibly for the Christmas market, the band featuring Wally Palmer (G/Vocals) and Jimmy Marinos (D/Vocals on some songs including "What I Like About You" almost as a tribute to the Dave Clark 5) with Producer Pete Solley whipped up an album in the Summer of 1980 in NYC with a bit of over-production and some very quick decisions to the album. Listened to without knowing, it's easy to overlook what was going on, with the chords chiming in strong. Still, when it's known that "Friday At the Hideout" was a cover of the Underdogs song that was a tribute to the Detroit Teen Club of The 60's and "I Can't Tell You Anything" was the B-Side to their first local single, they screamed of quick patches to meet the deadline, although the production was a little bit on the overdone side.





Sadly, the singles for the album sounded like attempts to get the listeners to view the Romantics in a different light. They were more than the band who crashed some sharp chords and went "HEY!", and they were, but with a tight schedule, it was obvious that these moves were more self conscious than natural. "Forever Yours" was a nice tune, but a little too light in my opinion while "21 and Over" sounded like it was written after hearing Madness' "One Step Beyond" as an attempt to try a Ska flavor in their music, although it was unleashed when the Two Tone craze was dying out.

Still, you can tell that the video to "Forever Yours" hinted at a better known video three years later on...




Thankfully, there were a couple of other highlights. The opener "Tomboy" sounded very rushed with clumsy lyrics, but did have some of the crashing chords that made their early sound attractive to Power Pop fans while "Take Me Out of the Rain" was a far better ballad than "Forever Yours" with a Folk Rock influence.

Sadly, with a lot of factors stopping the album's progress out of the gate, it remained a very low selling album, and the last with Guitarist Mike Skill for a while (Their third, Strictly Personal, was that troubled Skill-less album). As it was unleashed around the first week of December, 1980, its possible that the lack of first week Radio Support in a time when John Lennon's legacy and music was being remembered after being shot on Dec. 8 (a day that effected me a lot as a kid) halted a lot of early promotion, and while that's a business minded view, it is an example of how events can change things overnight from thinking that an album recorded in the Summer of that year would continue the success of the first album to a tragedy pausing a lot of what was going on that week in the music industry, especially after the death of Led Zeppelin's John Bonham adding on to a lot of the remembrance-minded programming of that time on US Radio as well as re-issues of albums by The Rolling Stones in the wake of Emotional Rescue and Elektra's release of The Doors' Greatest Hits. The Christmas season also meant big albums by the big stars accepted on Pop Radio who were not as much on Lennon, The Beatles, Stones, or Zeppelin, including the then-latest Rod Stewart album Foolish Behavior with "Passion" (Which, by the way wound up in the C/O bins in a couple of years! Over-printing was the game, following up on his mega hit Blondes Have More Fun), so that first week of December had a lot of things going on. In a way, the cover added on to things as well with no iconic image or even a sharp one.

And then in the next week came another mega-hit that announced a change in the new music...

In the week after National Breakout's debut on the Billboard chart, on it's way to a not so magical #176, and with The Police already making waves while giving the New Music a slight Reggae-influenced style, Blondie's genre-breaking and Pop Radio played Autoamerican signified that the New Music was trying to go somewhere else enough for it to go #1. In 1981, as The Romantics were trying out a slicker image, the industry was trying new sounds for the next decade with MTV (starting up in August) sparking a few things here and there while they were selling more of the usual, leaving a lot of Power Pop in the dust for a while although a couple of quality musicians went for it in the New Wave era although not to too much success as well. In a time when AOR radio was getting used to the changes in the sound, The Romantics finally found their sound for the '80's with "Talking In Your Sleep", but it was far removed from their early days with a sharp video, and then things went out of their favor by 1985 again by their next album with the ironically titled single "The Test of Time"...well, maybe Rhythm Romance did not, but some of their music overall did.

At their best, and when one does not think about things too much, The Romantics can provide some good Pop Rock fun, and this album at least showed that despite the troubles, they still had it in them to whip up a better than average collection of songs. Two major hits that are still remembered through their years together as well as a well-respected 2Ks album is a damn good average after all these years! Ironically, and all the more cool for it considering who went #1 through 80 and 81, Blondie's Clem Bruke was also a Romantic for a while.

Wally Palmer also was in an edition of Ringo Starr's All Starr Band as well!

I still wonder if "Tomboy" was the inspiration of a B-Film made a couple of years after...

Last edited by Screen13; 06-09-2013 at 06:33 PM.
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