Nominated by: KS
Music club: WTWMC
Playlist addition: Fraulein Love
WATCH OUT YOUNG LOVE!!!!
Well well well- who would have thought that a look and a song that could be so subversive in 1975 could stand up to scrutiny in 2022.
The glam look was the shock value back then wasn't it - the androgynous Alastair Riddell. This was our Bowie moment - when Ziggy wasn't a starman from the other side of the planet (so - like Mars) but a Kiwi on our TV screens. Wow. An Auckland kid!! That was the shock for me.
We all watched him on New Faces (very appropriately named) transfixed, mouths open, giddy excitement welling up. I'm sure our dads were all either bemused (mine) or disgusted (GK's). But this was our time!
I enjoyed re-watching the episode - what a boring, terrible load of old codswallop was served up to us back then - no wonder SW and SE stood out so thoroughly.
Out In The Street was the song that launched me into a different way of appreciating NZ music. Sure it was hugely Bowie influenced but there was something else at play - a stretching of boundaries of what could be a successful pop song/ pop star in NZ. Phil Warren complains during the episode that Beautiful Boy is too similar to Out In The Street and yes and no, it is glam and Bowie/Ziggy derivative but it's also a different song! And so what. He was obviously after all-round entertainer-ship - a ballad, a folk song, some pop and disco. Bollocks to that! Something was happening Mr Warren and you didn't know what it was!
I had to have the album when it came out. Unlike Mental Notes which seemed scary and weird and fascinating and not One Two Nine - this album backed up my initial impression of OITS brilliantly. I bought a copy from George Courts in K Rd one Friday afternoon on a record ramble with amigo Greg Knowles (we'd start at K Rd and wander down Queen Street ending at Marbecks Records in the Queen's Arcade).
Turns out OITS was no one hit wonder - Fraulein Love and Beautiful Boy continued the Bowie fixation.
Listening to it now I notice how some of the other songs sound similar to Mental Notes' prog rock moves. Love The Way He Smiles and Seabird could be long lost Split Enz songs (easy imagining Phil or Tim doing the vocals). Plus Alastair looks vaguely like Phil. No wonder the boys were interested in Alastair as an Enzer.
N.b. - the below relates to the vinyl original. For some reason Spotify flick the track order around crazily.
Side one is all great - four quality songs. Side two now sounds a little samey but Open Up has a nice hook and some lovely piano from Eddie although it's hidden a bit in the mix. Greg Clark and Alastair play their best glam guitar on songs like Scars Of Love and Brent Eccles looks the part and is solid throughout (and also a little buried in the mix). The Yandall Sisters (yes - the Yandall Sisters) add lovely harmony to Beautiful Boy and LTWHS; Eddie rescues Up To Now with great proggy keyboard flourishes and stars on the final track - LTWHS, by going full goose bozzo.
Negatives? Well, the lyrics are something Alastair may now look back on and go - what was I thinking? Some jar, some make no sense. But then again - who cares because they sound great. I read an article recently about why the language of song lyrics doesn't really matter and he makes some good points - Pocket - Why We Listen to Music With Lyrics We Don’t Understand (getpocket.com) So - there is that.
So, an easy 5 stars for me - a NZ classic. Both of it's time and timeless.
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