SGR

Okay, as recompense for me being late for reviewing my own nomination, I'm gonna be the first one at the trough here.

Concrete Blonde - Concrete Blonde (1986)



Ah yes, Concrete Blonde. That band that got airplay for “Joey” and basically nothing else - at least that I’m aware of. Years ago, when I was in my early teenage years, my uncle put me onto their third album, Bloodletting (that featured “Joey”). At the time, I thought it was alright. It never really resonated with me though - and as a result, that album was the end of my exploration of Concrete Blonde. So here we are again - listening to more Concrete Blonde - the future has compelled me to.

First off, Johnette Napolitano has a great voice. Lots of power and good range. “It’s all I can doooooooooooo….’cause I’m true” - she can belt - in fact, after listening to this record, I think she’s quite underrated. Even among great female rockstars of the ‘90s, you really don’t see her mentioned. Why is that? I don’t understand. Anyways, great voice.

Something about the quick shift between the somewhat melodic and mid-paced “True”, which opens the album excellently, to the rollicking speed test of “Your Haunted Head” comes off a little jarring to me upon repeated listens. I think if “Dance Along the Edge” came second in the tracklist (and this track third), that would feel like a more natural transition. Regardless, good tune!

“Dance Along The Edge” is one of those mid-paced slow-burn songs that devoted fans treasure and that casual fans use as a chance to attend the restroom and grab another drink during the concert. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, because this is another memorable track. Not great, but serviceable - the chorus is just enough. It goes on for just a minute too long though.

“Still in Hollywood” is a fast paced chunk of punk that reminds me quite a bit of The Pretenders (which is a compliment). Love the mood and energy of this one - one of them songs you turn up in your car in the summer and roll your windows all the way down. Lyrics are meh on this one, but it doesn’t even matter - because this is one of those songs where the lyrics are completely secondary. Nice guitar solo too. People would go and take a piss during the former track during a live set just to make sure they don’t miss this one. It’s one of those tracks. Keep on, keep on, keep on!!!!

“Song for Kim (She Said)” has this excellent melancholy guitar riff that, if slowed down, would find itself snugly on an early Low album. Provides great atmosphere. The little bass licks pick up the empty space left by the sparse guitar riffs incredibly well (the lead vocalist, Johnette is actually the bass player, it should probably be mentioned). Johnette’s vocal melodies here are just delicious and I love the lightly used echo effects. Slowcore-esque ambiance, e.g.:



And of course, a fitting comparison, given the bleak subject matter of the lyrics. This is probably the best track on the album - I just love this one. The chorus just explodes - “She said hoooold ooooon, hooold oooooooout, ’Cause it's good!” - before quickly and naturally returning back to the slow-earth crawl of the rest of the track; Featuring another completely tasteful little guitar solo too.

We get a serviceable cover of George Harrison’s “Beware of Darkness” too.

“Over Your Shoulder” is basically the inverse of “Your Haunted Head” in terms of subject matter - claiming that the subject can’t move on from the past relationship with the narrator. It’s also a little blast of punk with a catchy chorus in it own right. It’s a banger of a track.

“Little Sister” is serviceable and filling alt rock. Half a heart away, baby. Good song.

The album closes with “Make Me Cry” and “Cold Part of Town”, two more decent tracks about love and loneliness and loss. The former being a more acoustic number and the latter being a richer and fitting closing to the festivities.

Wait, that wasn’t the closing track? We get an instrumental version of the opening track “True” to actually end the album. Yeah, this is a nice instrumental - but tacking this on at the end is rather pointless.




Let’s talk about the lyrics of the record briefly - themes being some of the following:

Maintaining your integrity and being honest about you are -

“But if I can't walk proud, I'd rather walk away
I do all I am and it's all I can do
Oh I'm true” - True

Moving on from toxic relationships/exes -

“Now, I don't need your tragedy and I don't need your shame
You can't keep your promises, but you keep naming names
He laid his troubles out to me like a deck of playing cards
Well don't you know that I can tell the Kings and Jokers well apart?” - Your Haunted Head

Searching for love in a cynical world, fearing commitment -

“When do we stop searching
For what we're searching for?
Then when it comes
We question love and try for more” - Dance Along the Edge

The suicide of a friend:

“Oh, Kim
Your diary said
The voices calling you from the edge
They finally called you away
You know I hear them too
They're telling me to stay
Oh, Kim
Remember when
We had a million plans
And we believed them
Angry words ring in my head
I'd give every song I got in me
To bring it back again” - Song for Kim (She Said)

The inevitability of a sibling much younger than you making the same mistakes you did:

“Our mama's nest is empty, all the babies gone and grown
And you're talking
But I hear me, you should hear you
Look into a younger face that used to be my own
Years apart they make it harder to be near you” - Little Sister

Standard love song material gets some play:

“You're the only one who leaves me warm and satisfied
And you're the only one who takes me wrong and makes me right
Oh, and if you took your love away
You'd leave me high and dry
Cause baby, you're the only one can make me cry” - Make Me Cry

And of course, lost love and loneliness:

“Dear darling
You were right about them all
When my luck went bad
They never came around or called
That's all right
'Cause I don't miss them anyhow
But it gets chilly over here, sometimes
It's a cold part of town” - Cold Part of Town

Alright, let’s wrap things up here. After my first listen: “This is a serviceable ‘90s alt rock album”. After my second listen: “Jeez, this thing has some good tracks”. After my third listen: “Okay, okay, some of these tracks are sticking in my head, there’s some serious earworms here”. After my fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh listen: “What the hell should I rate this? This has no business being this enjoyable. I know deep down this is a 7/10 album objectively, but why does it excite me so much? Why do I feel so compelled to rate it higher? Can I find some sort of reason to not give it top marks?”

Okay, the George Harrison cover might be the weakest track, but it’s not bad. The instrumental track of “True” at the end is unnecessary. And I don’t like the track placement of “Your Haunted Head”. These issues though, for the most part, are forgivable. I want to give it a 9, my brain is telling me an 8, so I’ll compromise here.

This is a great album; An underrated album. And going into it, I didn’t expect to like it nearly this much. All things said, it’s basically a standard ’90 alt-rock record - but damn I’d be a liar if I said I didn’t love it. I don’t think I’ve listened to any nominations in this club thus far as much as I’ve listened to this one. It’s been spin after spin. I think I’ll need to revisit Bloodletting honestly.

Ehh……**** it. Great pick, rubber soul.

9/10

SGR

Thank Mindy! Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Lisnaholic

Still reeling from Paul's Boutique, my first reaction to Concrete Blonde was one of delight when I heard the ringing guitar at the start of opening track, True. It's a great track, with some good lyrics. Faster tempo Haunted House has a nice aggressive guitar solo, but then the intensity suddenly dropped on the third track, Dance Along The Edge which I felt was a bit mediocre. But things bounce back up again for Still In Hollywood:I loved the lyrics and the wild, biting guitar throughout this track.

Song For Kim is another so-so song, imo, and although it has an interesting new tone for the brief guitar solo, the song sets a kind of base-line for the album, which the band keeps coming back to: short songs that are ok, but not outstanding. While these lesser songs were playing, my mind turned to two questions: (i) is the female vocalist reminding me of Blondie or the girl in The Pretenders? Or perhaps Kim Carnes, given that song title. (ii) why have they stuck so firmly to the three-and-a-bit minute format for their songs? Minutes are to music like bricks are to buildings: it's what you use to create something. To make a cathedral, you need a lot of bricks, but Concrete Blonde keep building songs with only a few bricks: they manage to squeeze in a verse or two, middle 8, chorus and quick guitar solo, then wrap things up as if to meet their self-imposed time limit. Next song, same as previous: assemble the essential components and then stop, instead of trying for something longer and more ambitious.

Well, those minor grumbles took longer to explain than I expected, so to redress that impression and get some perspective back, even the lesser songs are pretty good. I liked Little Sister and even more so Make Me Cry, with its strummed acoustic guitar. One minute it sounded like a nice retro nod to The Beatles, then made me think of The Eagles. In its soft way, it's an album highlight for me, while the rocking highlight is Still In Hollywood . Instrumental True is good, but too short.

8.5 is my vote for this album, Rubber Soul: thanks for introducing me to a band that I will definitely explore furthur.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

Lisnaholic

I've just gone back to read the reviews-so-far for this album: very interesting as always to see someone else's take on an album That's a very perceptive comment, SGR, 100% agree, and likewise with your comment about the instrumental True being in the wrong place. It should've been in the middle of the album to give us just a short break from the singer.

Also thanks for looking at the lyrics, which are better than I imagined (takes me quite a few plays to actually work out lyrics usually). So I was wrong about Song For Kim - I might go back and give it another listen.

I always like reading these details about how people are approaching the music because its usually so different from my perspective, for example, 1986 is not looking back to before I was born, but instead was a year when I'd pretty much given up on rock and pop, feeling that the young 'uns just weren't up to the standard of the 60s/70s bands I'd grown up with. Still, different directions or not, we agree on one thing, Mindfulness: Still In Hollywood is a real stand-out!

Time for me to check out this Joey song that is getting mentioned, replay Song For Kim, and why not, replay the whole album to see if I experience the SGR effect and have to come back to bump up my rating of Concrete Blonde.

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

rubber soul

From Bloodletting (1990)

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Trollheart

Concrete Blonde - s/t

Somewhat like Lisna, I was delighted to hear music I could really get into, after (sorry SGR) the disappointment of the Boys who are somewhat like Animals, and as this album went on I just got happier and happier. For some reason, I assumed this might be a punk/rockabilly kind of thing, but if I had to characterise CB I might consider an amalgam of Blondie, Dire Straits and the Pretenders. I don't think there was any track on this I didn't love, and it just got better from the first to the last. Their version of Harrison's "Beware of Darkness" has just the right amount of angst and moody brooding with a heavier, almost metal guitar line, while "Cold Part of Town" has a great hook in it. Okay, it looks like my YouTube has the tracks screwed around but bear with me. Great guitar sound on this one.

Next one I got is "Dance Along the Edge", which gives me a sort of Springsteen vibe for some reason along with Simple Minds and has a great bass line with some pretty cool drumming too. I really feel the singer here is very Chrissy Hynde-lite, and that's not a criticism. This is one of my favourites on the album I would say. Then again, there's "Song for Kim (She Said)" which has a real lowdown funky feel to it, the bass thumping like a heartbeat, and "Your Haunted Head", which just goes for it, heads-down, kicking over tables and causing all sorts of trouble.

The vocal is an odd spoken one at times; I'd say this is the closest the album comes to straight-ahead punk, but stili with an edge of restraint, "You're the Only One" is a cool acoustic bopper with a slice of country in it, then back to the high-energy rock for "Still in Hollywood", another standout. The exuberance in the chorus is to die for. Powering along then for "Over Your Shoulder", bit of an unexpectedly abrupt ending, and on to "Little Sister", where the rhythm section really come into their own, though the vocalist seems a little lost in the mix at first, though she does find her feet, or I should say her voice. The instrumental version of "True" is nice, and then there's a different version of "Still in Hollywood", called "I'll Chew You Up and Spit You Out." Yeah. Probably didn't really need that.

Overall though, a highly entertaining album with mostly great tracks, fine musicianship and a decent singer. Very catchy, and well worth listening to.

Rating: 8.9/10

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

Lisnaholic

Trollheart is a busy man, and I hope he won't object to me helping out the Album Club with a quick update:

I) the latest "Done and Dusted" albums:

II) Both those albums above were only reviewed by 4 members, and I don't think rs has reviewed the album he nominated, which seems an uncharacteristic oversight.
I hope you're ok, rs.

III) this is the album we are scheduled to be looking at right now:

"From Spain To Spain" by Vox.

This album isn't very search friendly, because search terms "Vox" and "Spain" tend to drag the results away from the cd. Here's a YouTube link to the full album:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIIA...nnel=Vox-Topic

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"Am I enjoying this moment? I know of it and perhaps that is enough." - Sybille Bedford, 1953

rubber soul

Almost forgot, Lisna, sorry.

CONCRETE BLONDE- CONCRETE BLONDE

I was torn as to which album to pick for my turn. I ended up going with this one because of one song mainly, Still in Hollywood to me rates as one of the underrated punk anthems.

And it makes sense too as Concrete Blonde came out of the LA Punk scene, albeit a little late (the debut album is from late 1986). It’s not a perfect album to be sure. Except for a solid George Harrison cover, I don’t see why side two is necessary.

But side one is as good as any album side I’ve listened to. It starts out with the jangly True, my other favorite track on the album. Dance Along the Edge probably got the most radio airplay since Still in Hollywood features a naughty word (tsk, tsk.). That too is one of the more solid tracks.

I’d like to say that Concrete Blonde is one of the great punk albums but, alas, only Still in Hollywood rates as a punk song. The other tracks are mostly solid late eighties rock. You could even imagine Dance Along the Edge on some movie soundtrack circa 1987. One would think John Hughes would have loved them.

As for me, I find this to be a well above average album that I like to listen to once in a while. Concrete Blonde would go on to record eight albums in total with varying results, the most successful being their next two albums, Free, and Bloodletting, both very successful commercially and critically. No more punk classics though unless you count the heavy God is a Bullet off Free.

Thanks to those who reviewed the album. Glad I found something you could really get into, SGR. I think you like the album even better than I do. (As do some others )

And my rating…



8/10 (The Word has spoken )

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Trollheart

Thanks for keeping tabs, Lisna. A lot of the time I'm the one who needs a


OP has been changed to reflect the new album, and congrats to Mindfulness, who is now a Full Member.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018

SGR