My Amazon Reviews: Rachel Sweet "B.A.B.Y.: The Best of Rachel Sweet"

The Sweet Spot
3 Out Of 5 Stars

Stiff Records thought they had a ringer in 15 year old country belter Rachel Sweet. They teamed her up with Svengali Liam Sternberg and used her incredible voice, which crossed Brenda Lee country with new-wave brass, dressed her up as jailbait (to more than a little controversy) and released "Fool Around." Controversy or no, Sweet blew it all to the side with her faithful versions of Carla Thomas' "B.A.B.Y." and Del Shannon's "I Go To Pieces," Sweet proved she was more than a tarted up image. This compilation samples from her two Stiff albums, "Fool Around" and the more straight-forward "Protect The Innocent."

Backed on some of these songs by The Rumour and Will Birch and The Records, Sweet never lacked for decent backup musicians. She could move easily between styles, covering Elvis Presley's "Baby Let's Play House" or Elvis Costello's "Stranger in The House," then busting loose with label-mate Lene Lovich for "Cuckoo Clock." The half of this disc not produced by Sternberg was done by pop maestros Martin Rushent and Alan Winstanley and is taken from the terrific "Protect The Innocent." She went from covering The Damned's punk classic "New Rose" to doing the seductive teen-dream "Tonight Ricky."

While Sweet cut two more albums for Columbia, they aren't represented here. While that's a shame, they were both uneven albums and can be found on the two-fer Then He Kissed Me/Blame It on Love. This best of manages to pull together over an hour from two albums, making "B.A.B.Y - The Best Of Rachel Sweet" a real bargain for old fans of everything Stiff.

     

My Amazon Reviews: Searchers "Love's Melodies"

Searching for The Time Machine 
3 Out of 5 Stars

Original Searchers John MacNally and John Pender were the core of the original incarnation of The Searchers, playing on such classic songs as "Needles and Pins" and "Sweets for My Sweet." Frank Allan had been in the band from the late sixties on. Even if the hits had long stop coming, The Searchers soldiered on. Then, it seems, time caught up with them again. Their brand of jangle pop had been flaunted by everyone from Tom Petty to REM, and in 1980, Sire Records (home to Talking Heads, Ramones, etc) signed them for a new album. That 1980 album, simply titled "The Searchers," was an amazingly deft, surprisingly strong modern jangle pop album, did modest sales and garnered a fair amount of critical acclaim.

Naturally, there was a follow-up a year later. "Love's Melodies" is just as good, despite sporting an awful album cover. However, the album followed the same formula as the prior; tart covers of songs by a crop of current writers, a pair of originals, and the tingle of twelve string Richenbachers giving The Searchers their classic sound in an up-to-date setting. This disc does miss the killer punch of The Records' Will Birch's "Hearts In Her Eyes," but The Searchers went back to him for a pair of gems. Both "Everything But a Heartbeat" and "Radio Romance" came from Birch's pen and highlight "Love's Melodies." The Motors get a solid via a cover of "Love's Melody," as does Moon Martin on "Love's Made a Fool Of You."

The Searchers also took a step back to their heyday by taking on John Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night" and nodded to a band that had obviously taken some influence by recording Big Star's "September Gurls" about a decade before The Bangles. The seriousness of the album's selection should have made more music buffs sit up and take notice, as most of these could have slipped on any current modern rock station. Even a couple decades later, "Love's Melodies" stirring harmonies and chiming guitars hold up excellently. It may have taken a long time for these two discs to make it to CD, but they're still very much worth having.

   

Passings: Phil Brown, bassist and founding member of The Records

From Steve Simels at PowerPop blog: Phil Brown, bassist and founding member of The Records -- and if you don't know who they are and love them to distraction I'm surprised you're reading this particular blog -- has passed away after a long illness.

 That really sucks. The Records were one of my 80's faves with tow US albums on Virgin Records. They wrote terrific jangle-pop, to the point that "Starry Eyes" just missed the top 40 and "Hearts In Her Eyes" got covered by the classic pop group, The Searchers. The Records should have been huge.

Here's one of my faves from their debut: