In a conversation with a friend about the previous Dollar Bin album, Mental As Anything’s Creatures of Leisure, he remembered that he had picked that album up when it was first released (similarly intrigued by that moment when Australia was considered exotic), and while he remembered it being pleasant, even good, it simply wasn’t distinctive enough to ever make much of a dent commercially, critically, or even in his memory.
I think that’s a fair evaluation of that album and of the album I’ll be discussing in a minute and of almost every album I’ve ever found in a dollar bin. These records tend to be inferior imitations of something or someone that was more popular, more critically lauded, and generally better than the marked-down also-rans. One example, speaking of the dollar bin, is the mind-boggling number of less-than-great UK bands that got a US record deal in the early 80s because they sounded at least a little bit like Elvis Costello. Think Any Trouble, The Jags, The Elevators, Scott Wilk and the Walls…there were really quite a few, considering that Costello himself wasn’t that huge of a commercial force (number of top 100 singles prior to 1983: 0).
But let’s face it: There really aren’t that many great albums, are there? Think about it. How many albums in your collection do you keep around because “it’s an interesting sound,” or “there are a few good tracks on that,” or “I bought that on a whim in the mall store in Hays, and my pal David and I were over the moon about it.”? In my case there are quite a few, cemented into their place in the stacks by nostalgia, but never enjoyed as a whole because the dross surrounding the gems isn’t interesting enough to justify a half-hour plus of my time.
The beauty of the single, the radio, the mix tape, the iPod is that they create an environment where any song that is good enough that I want to hear it again is worthwhile. Therefore, they elevate the importance of albums that have 3-4 really strong tracks on them. When I sit down and go through the pile of mostly mediocre, occasionally terrible albums that are sitting in the closet awaiting possible induction into the permanent archives, I’m mostly listening for tracks that I want to put into the other permanent archive, my iPod playlist. I’m not likely to find a Get Happy there. But I don’t want to live in a world without Back of My Hand (I Got Your Number).
But I digress. This is a 1981 album that New Musik’s US label, Epic, assembled from two prior UK albums. It’s an interesting mash: The songs themselves are clearly in the 1979 UK power pop mode, influenced by Costello and the Beatles, but the arrangements are primarily electronic, favoring warm synth tones and submarine blips that remind me very much of Thomas Dolby’s stellar debut album The Golden Age Of Wireless. Among the 12 tracks here, five were released as singles in the UK, which inspires confidence. Of the 45s comped here, perhaps the best is Luxury, which again, has Dolby-esque sonics (although this was a couple of years before Wireless came out), and a melody that seems very ’66 Beatles to me. While not everything here is great, and a few tracks overstay their welcome, there is nothing less than pleasant. If you enjoy this sound, you’ll probably find the whole thing very digestible. I added a half-dozen tracks from this one to the iPod. A dollar well spent.
By the way, New Musik had one of those 10″ Nu-Disk releases (speaking of dollar bins) in the late 70s. Remember those? Here‘s a very entertaining recap of that failed marketing strategy from Larry Waldbillig at the History’s Dumpster blog.
The producer/singer/songwriter of New Musik, Tony Mansfield, went on to a successful production career. You can hear how the sounds explored on this album eventually contributed to hits by Captain Sensible and Naked Eyes.
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