The J. Geils Band: Love Stinks

"You love her.

But she loves him.

And he loves somebody else.

You just can't win.

And so it goes til' the day you die.

This thing they call love it's gonna make you cry."

As a kid The J. Geils Band was something like a group of gods in my house to my brother and I growing up. The magnificently epic Love Stinks led the charge as we watched the whizzing wheels of our cassette player fast forward and rewind to our favorites. We didn't know a thing about love. It was the late J. Geils (he sadly passed away in 2017), lead guitarist for the band, with the powerful rock and soul lead vocals of Peter Wolf who taught us very clearly that love stinks and its inescapable. We believed them and the group's clear, concise, definitive proclamation.

As kids my mother had ever so generously purchased each of us our own respective music players. My brother had the cassette player. This writer gambled with the eight track player. It quickly became evident I was on the losing side of history along with the Beta tape crowd. My brother, ever the winner, was just that with his cassette playing stereo. At least for a few years longer than me he was winning.

And that's another thing about popular music, is that it takes us back. There's a nostalgic memory marker on these songs for us sometimes and Love Stinks, apart from being a big, bold pop song is one of those songs for me. It's a stroll down memory lane. It transports us. It brings us back to a special time, a moment, a love. It has the potential for that extremely powerful emotional connection to the past for us. The J. Geils Band is one of those musically audacious bands for me.

The Massachusetts-based band delivered our youthful minds that tremendous power ballad via their recording of the same name Love Stinks (1980) at the start of one of the great music decades.

The whirling disco-tinged buzz saw ran through Come Back and strange story-driven numbers like No Anchovies Please must have concerned my mother, but the oddity of the mix and the weirdness of it all spoke to our curious minds.

The J. Geils Band formed as far back as 1968, but finally hit pay dirt in 1980 briefly and then quickly followed with Freeze Frame (1981) which included the self-titled top ten hit and the Billboard number one Centerfold before Peter Wolf departed for a solo career and the band disbanding shortly thereafter.

There was something about that crazy Peter Wolf, with his American swagger with a touch of Mick Jagger, that elevated him to crazy cool god status for me, but alas my affection for his music ended with his first two solo recordings for EMI, Lights Out (1984) and Come As You Are (1987). More on one or two of those tracks in the future here.

As for The J. Geils Band they filled a certain niche and period of my young life and I'll forever have fond memories of some of their songs in the early 1980s. Some of their songs were fantastic, even teaching us at a very young age a thing or two about love and sex and centerfolds. And Love Stinks is a hearty, musically audacious, thick, robust rocker that brings us back home.

Love Stinks: C+. The J. Geils Band never made a perfect recording for me and neither did Peter Wolf as a solo artist for that matter, but they had some great singles. Love Stinks has some good moments. Just Can't Wait, Come Back and the incredibly strong title track saw the band make a mark.

Love Stinks: A. A tremendous track led by that cock sure guitar thanks to the band's leader and Wolf with a strong rock vocal. Wolf was at his best in the 1980s. A truly remarkable and playful voice.

Labi Siffre: Watch Me

"Watch me when you call me.

See me sparkle.

See me flame.

...Touch me in your own sweet way."

It's incredibly refreshing when a song comes along and hits this music fan's ears that he has never heard. It's such a celebratory revelation for me. I'm just that connected with music. It's very primal. It's also a little surprising when its decades old and yet still sounds as timeless as something recorded just yesterday.

This happens for this writer often four different ways.

4. Loading my iPhone with full length recordings not yet truly explored by artists I love and discovering real surprises like album tracks. Recent examples include Sade and Journey.

3. Suggestion by a friend to check out something new or old.

2. Surfing iTunes and bumping into new or old music by chance that just washes over me.

1. Discovering music in film and television I've never heard that inspires me to download more.

A recent investment of time, and an emotional one, into television's This Is Us (2016-present) has revealed some surprises like a lot of good shows. Though I have been accused of going soft, wearing a tampon and generally disrespected by those lacking a human heart. I take it in stride and fiercely defend the series given its strong cast of male characters.

Discoveries in music have come by way of Longmire (2012-2017), The 100 (2014-present), The Leftovers (2014-2017), Hung (2009-2011) and the list goes on.

It was the Pilot episode of This Is Us (with much involvement by former Thirtysomething lead Ken Olin) that opened me to a new discovery in form of music by British born Labi Siffre (now 72).

Siffre charted with just four UK singles in the 1970s reaching number 29 with this breezy little love affair called Watch Me. The song works as an emotional bit of subliminal messaging for the touchingly resonant This Is Us in the series opener too. It's a series that works in that wheelhouse of relationship shows like the classic Thirtysomething (1987-1991) or Party Of Five (1994-2000).

Siffre's most recognizable musical output was delivered in the 1970s but he returned from self-imposed retirement in 1988 for four more recordings into the 1990s triggered by a racial incident in South Africa. He has released ten productions to date.

Siffre, like so many pop stars and Hollywood elite, leans left as a social justice warrior. Identity politics and issues of race are endemic today, and it all troubles me as a person because I simply look at people without the identifications.

Nevertheless when it comes to capturing a sense of universal human emotion in song Siffre does so beautifully here with Watch Me.

Outside of music so many movie stars and singers do their best to influence global politics and this writer and fan of music, who connects with the universality of humanity, simply finds the efforts as divisive as ever. So watch me disagree on their political points often.

As far as the music, it's a song like Watch Me that opens my mind and allows me to explore more by a given artist I never knew.

Crying Laughing Loving Lying (Deluxe Edition) (1972). B+. A delightful twenty (20) track collection of simple, straightforward, guitar pop songs that even includes the original version of the song Madness made popular in 1981, It Must Be Love.

Watch Me. A. A light effervescent little number that really lifts the spirit. Even the coldest hearts should melt with this loving, affectionate little piece of musical poetry that truly comes alive with Siffre's vocal. Leave the politics at the door and let the music soar.

Ali Campbell: Happiness

"I was born with so much love I burst each time the sun rises.

I reserved the hurt I feel to make happy surprises.

... Happiness is knowing you are loved."

Rarely does a song lift me with such joy in the way Ali Campbell's Happiness fills my heart. There is no way to completely understand how or why a song can touch someone's heart and soul. It just inexplicably happens for different reasons and it happens again and again but remains an entirely subjective experience.

Happiness is precisely one of those songs for this music fan. From the very opening words the song lifts my heart and just soars. It is indeed a very primal reaction for me and music is indeed a very primal connection and experience in general for most fans of music.

Ali Campbell is the voice of UB40, the most successful British reggae-based act to come out of a slough of ska and British bands from the British isles amidst a wave of New Romantic and New Wave acts that flourished in the day.

Formed in 1978 Campbell exited UB40 thirty years later in 2008 under some still unclear contention within the band that sadly continues today. Campbell is now recording using the UB40 name alongside Mickey Virtue and Astro. Meanwhile his brothers Robin and Duncan Campbell carry on using the UB40 name with other originating members of the band. In other words, as they say, it's a bit of a shit show. It's a mess and clearly a feud exists to the detriment of a large group of talented musicians who enjoyed a long run of great music. On the up side, these artists are still making music.

Familial Schisms aside Ali is indeed the true voice of the band singing most of the groups songs along with a percentage fronted by Astro. And hell be damned Ali and Astro are riding high again with a new release forthcoming A Real Labour Of Love (2018) as UB40 featuring Ali, Astro And Mickey.

UB40 is a funny animal too, given its adherence to the reggae genre. You either are a fan of this music and the band's stylings or you flat out dislike the sound. It's a breezy sound that's hard to hate but runs counter to the more widely accepted often harder edges of the rap genre.

Ali Campbell's first foray into a solo career arrived with Big Love (1995). It's a solid outing and the recording from which Happiness was lifted. It opens the recording and just keeps moving onward and upward from there. Interestingly, despite my enthusiasm for this selection to be covered here at The Pop Song, the track was not a single release, but one of those classic album cuts that proves fruitful upon every listen. There are thousands upon thousands of them. Album track fans you know where they are.

To this day Happiness ranks among this listeners all time favorite songs. There is no explanation for it. UB40 was always about love songs and Happiness is no exception to filling that cup.

Big Love (1995). B+. This is big collection of strong Ali Campbell solo songs. Fans of UB40 will not be disappointed. That Look In Your Eye, You Can Cry On My Shoulder, Somethin' Stupid and others delight and shine on this collection of big love numbers.

Happiness. A. This is the outstanding opening track that is simple, spare in its musical accompaniment and arrangement with an impressively strong vocal from one timeless Ali Campbell. Come on get happy with me.

 

Godley & Creme: Cry

"You don't know how to ease my pain.
You don't know.
You don't know how to ease my pain.
...That's the sound of our love dying.
...You make me want to cry."

This writer is not particularly fond of weird, quirky, experimental pop music, but 10cc was an act I was always intrigued by thanks to their magnificently epic pop masterpiece I'm Not In Love. That's a song easily among my Top 10 favorites of all time, but that's a song for another day. It was that song that led me into the world of 10cc. It was a world that wasn't nearly as inviting as that song. I've always been more inclined to more accessible, masterful pop music they created than the overly eccentric pop productions. So their music is a mixed bag for me.

10cc is downright difficult to embrace musically despite a wild sense of humor, but that act comprised of Kevin Godley and Lol Crème recorded one of the very best pop songs ever made in I'm Not In Love, from The Original Soundtrack (1975), with vocals by Eric Stewart. Stewart returned with 10cc's The Things We Do For Love two years later for The Deceptive Bends (1977) recording.

Clearly it was Stewart that had a flair for the melodic as much as the ingenious Godley and Crème did for the quirky and offbeat oddity. Following Godley and Creme's departure from 10cc in 1976 the duo struck out on their own and began releasing their own productions disbanding Godley & Crème after eight unusual recordings.

The strange duo's only single success stateside came from their seventh recording, The History Mix Volume 1 (1985). That song was Cry. It was a remarkably impressive piece of pop music propelled by a successive deliberate beat. The reason for the act's success, finally, largely had to do with their teaming with members of The Art Of Noise (whom Lol Crème joined in 1998). J.J. Jeczalik and producer Trevor Horn (The Buggles' Video Killed The Radio Star) stepped in. Horn worked production polish on anything he touched for a decade.

ABC. Frankie Goes To Hollywood. Yes. Seal. Pet Shop Boys. Simple Minds. You name the band from the 1980s and yes Trevor Horn may have been hired by them.

In the end, Cry would become a minor single for the band, but on my playlist it remains a popular favorite to this day. It is a stunningly emotional piece of pop music.

In fact, the changing faces video concept that accompanied the song was indeed ahead of its time as faces morphed or cross-faded from one to another. The video idea predated the late Michael Jackson's Black Or White (1991) video by six years.

Despite having an abundance of creativity and inspiration to spare the band made little effort to create something melodic for insertion into the mainstream. It simply wasn't in their make-up and that's truly unfortunate to a listener like me. The construction of Cry was evidence Godley & Crème could have come up with a full production of truly memorable songs like this one.

Nevertheless, the duo relayed their visual imagination into making music videos throughout the era. Godley & Crème created videos for The Police, Asia, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Sting, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Elton John, Paul Young, Go West, Howard Jones, INXS, Thompson Twins, George Harrison, Wang Chung, Huey Lewis And The News, Peter Gabriel, Ultravox and yes, Yes.

Lol Crème tellingly told Musician magazine in 1985, "We're not in the music business. We left it in 1976 and we haven't taken it seriously since." And that remark tells the story to a degree and says a lot about the duo's playful approach to sound and song. The duo would never look the part of pop stars today, but the music world was a better place for their involvement to be sure.

The resulting Cry, as brilliant as it was, feels now more likely a success by chance and that's really enough to make you wanna' cry. Fortunately it was popular enough to catch this listener's notice. It remains one of the best of the 1980s.

The History Mix Volume 1 (1985): D. An offbeat collection of songs with the standout being the incredible Cry. A medley on the collection, Wet Rubber Soup, also samples I'm Not In Love. This medley coupled with an extended version of Cry runs approximately 18 minutes. A rarity to be sure, but not exactly a satisfying experience.

Cry. A. Truly one of the rare, forgotten and great songs of the 1980s. The song cannot be found on iTunes, yet the video can be downloaded there. The single (edit) was available on a VH1 classic singles collection on CD once upon a time, which is where I snagged my copy. Collections by the act are also out there and do include the extended Cry. But, sadly (ahem), gems like this one are hard to come by today. We are left to resort to ripping them any way humanly possible off You Tube and the web when and where required alongside rare finds by Peter Wolf and Tears For Fears.

 

Highasakite: Everything Sank In You

"Everything sank in you.

Like the ocean swallows bodies, I can't tell if you're in there, somewhere.

I can't tell if you're there."

This writer had the absolute luck and good fortune to discover Highasakite completely by chance. I had attended Iceland's Of Monsters And Men concert at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut back on one cool fall evening with my daughter in 2015 even kicking off the night with a deliciously prepared steak.

Highasakite was the opening act. Like the Icelandic band, Norway's Highasakite was something of a revelation to me upon first listen. The music spoke to me. The voice of lead singer Ingrid Helene Havik was stunning, rich, milky, powerful and overall a tsunami to these ears. She was moving to me in the same way Nanna Brydnis Hilmarsdottir of Of Monsters And Men touched me as a vocalist.

I sometimes wonder if I had not attended that concert if I ever would have discovered that band. They are hardly mainstream and virtually unknown to American listeners despite reaching our shores.

Ultimately this listener is hard pressed to pick any one song by Highasakite to be discussed on The Pop Song. And this won't be the last by the band to be highlighted here, but Everything Sank In You is a luscious, gorgeous example of Havik's vocal skill and poetic musings. She is a deft purveyor of cerebral pop and puts to shame the female pop often associated with the mainstream. Ladies you know who you are. It's almost criminal she's not among the very best. Perhaps there is an intellectual appeal here that is missed by the average listener more than satisfied with the throwaway garbage making top tens each week. I know, tell you how I really feel right?

Everything Sank In You turned up as a bonus track on the band's second recording Silent Treatment (2014), but was originally recorded for their debut recording All That Floats Will Rain (2012). The formerly evasive latter production, thanks to the act's growing appeal worldwide, has since been remedied and reissued and includes a number of previously unavailable tracks that did not make the group's In And Out Of Weeks Ep.

The group's debut recording is spellbinding on so many levels. The band's music is multi-layered and interesting in complexity. You'll find so much about their first two recordings to really dig into and their third release Camp Echo (2016) is no slouch.

Havik first appeared in a one off recording, a self-titled production (2011), under the band moniker Your Headlights Are On. Havik slipped by and surprised us with an intriguing and beautiful solo effort called Babylove (2013) as well.

The songwriter/vocalist Havik has remained prolific with no signs of strain to quality. When it comes to creativity this is one artist and one band clearly high as a kite with nothing to stop them from reaching further into the sky and to the stars on sheer talent alone.

To this day I'm really pleased I saw that concert for both bands.

All That Floats Will Rain (2012): A-. A strong debut collection of fantastic material that followed a wonderful recording by the band Your Headlights Are On and preceded a gem of a solo effort by Havik. This is a ten song collection to quickly get high on in any sophisticated pop collection.

Everything Sank In You. A. Track 9 is a lovely selection on a delicious effort that really showcases the talent of Havik. A delight of an example on what you will find on any of their efforts each rewarding depth with repeated listening.

 

Steve Winwood: My Love's Leavin'

"Can I cope with today?

My love is leavin' me.

Still I'm hoping she'll stay.

My love is leavin's me."

The long and storied career of one singer songwriter Steve Winwood is impressive indeed and really should need no introduction.

The Spencer Davis Group.
Blind Faith (with Eric Clapton).
Traffic.

He's provided session work with some of the very best acts in music. Christine McVie. Robert Palmer. Lou Reed. George Harrison. Billy Joel. Phil Collins. And even Talk Talk on one of my very favorite recordings, The Colour Of Spring (1986).

And the list of musical endeavors goes on. If you're not at least familiar with Winwood you really do need to expand your musical horizons.

Winwood really made a name for himself as a solo artist with the arrival of the wonderful effervescent pop number While You See A Chance from Arc Of A Diver in (1980), but it was his third solo album, Back In The High Life (1986), that really saw the singer riding just that way---high. Roll With It (1988) capitalized on that momentum with another slough of great pop songs including Holding On, Don't You Know What The Night Can Do? and the title track.

But the aforementioned Back In The High Life remains a classic recording in its entirety filled with just eight inspired songs like Higher Love, Freedom Overspill, The Finer Things and the title track.

Driving to work with my own personal freedom overspill of music the selection My Love's Leavin' lit up the speakers and filled the car's cabin.

It's an infectiously simple closer to the recording, an unforgettable album track that reminds us all that not every great song has to be or is a pop hit. And not every song has to be a masterpiece in writing as evidenced by the sheer simplicity of this little love song.

My Love's Leavin' me remains one of those songs that receives heavy rotation on my playlist and is one of my favorites from that recording saving the best for last. In fact hearing it reminds me just how in the zone Steve Winwood was in the 1980s. The song also serves to refresh us with the facts that their is indeed a lot of great music out there still to be rediscovered and revisited. Winwood is unquestionably one of those artists that deserves a look.

Back In The High Life (1986). B+. A collection of eight gems that sort of reintroduced Winwood's voice to the pop world and the man had something to say, which is certainly not always the case in any pop landscape. He was definitely back in the high life with this work.

My Love's Leavin'. A. A sheer delight of simplicity in music production whereby Winwood delivers a tender, even melancholy little love and loss track to close out his classic, short eight song effort.

Tears For Fears: Stay

"Stay. Don't stay. Go. Don't Go."

Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith have had a hell of a journey, sometimes tumultuous and never making it easy on themselves. The duo that is the core of Tears For Fears may in fact always bring that creative tension to the table generating some of the most enjoyable pop songs of the past four decades even if today's youth aren't savvy enough to pay attention.

Following the epic semi-concept masterpiece that was The Seeds Of Love (1989) the duo essentially went their separate ways. Orzabal carried on the Tears name while Smith struggled to find his voice without the musical companionship of Orzabal's genius at his back.

After nearly fifteen years the duo rejoined in 2000 to write the cleverly titled Everybody Loves A Happy Ending (2004), but fortunately it didn't seem to end there.

Never exactly prolific as pop tunesmiths and craftsmen of pop songs of the highest order, the duo has worked almost at a snail's pace over the last two decades. This fan and a few others thinks the time is due for a new recording guys.

But rather than a full course menu the boys teased fans and the world with Rule The World: The Greatest Hits (2017) and delivered two new songs very under the radar. The songs worked nicely in conjunction with a stateside tour alongside talented American counterparts Daryl Hall And John Oates.

One selection is highlighted by Roland Orzabal in I Love You But I'm Lost, written with Dan Smith of Bastille, and the other is Stay with a tender lead vocal by Curt Smith.

Both are typically exquisite by the band, but not unlike the classic Everybody Wants To Rule The World (1985), also with a lead by Smith on one of the act's most popular songs ever, Stay once again sees Smith in magical form with Orzabal and the two back in the fold as one.

It was incredibly difficult to find a song that grabbed me from Smith's solo output over the years in the way Stay does so out of the gate so immediately. It is a simple ballad that works its way into the mind almost instantly. The song reminds us how good Orzabal and Smith are together. They are the perfect complement. Like Charlie Burchill and Jim Kerr (Simple Minds), Smith and Orzabal deliver a chemistry as a unit that is sometimes missing on their own.

So with that, please Tears For Fears, stay. We need you.

Rule The World: The Greatest Hits (2017). A. Once upon a time the duo did rule the world and here is a collection worthy of the name with two new songs that are easily as good as anything on the collection. Quite simply brilliant.

Stay. A. An achingly beautiful piece of musical poetry spearheaded by Curt Smith on vocals that illustrates how wondrous it is to watch Orzabal and Smith seamlessly switch roles on leads whenever the song suits them. Not many bands can share that call to arms so effortlessly. Stay is quite simply a gorgeous, delicate piece of pop.

Don Henley: The Boys Of Summer

"Out on the road today I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac.

A little voice inside my head said, 'don't look back you can never look back.'

I thought I knew what love was what did I know.

Those days are gone forever I should just let them go but...."

Variety in popular music, like anything else, is the spice of life. There are so many fantastic songs. It's hard to narrow down a favorite.

At this stage in my life this writer has enjoyed and immersed himself in a lot great music. I've also come to the conclusion I could reasonably narrow down a desert island top 10 without too much effort. There are some songs that just work for me that way. I've listened to them so many times I still never tire of hearing them. They are flawless to my ears and just never grow old.

Don Henley's The Boys Of Summer easily falls into the category of top ten favorites.

Oddly, maybe, the lead track from Building The Perfect Beast (1984) was issued in October of that year preceding the November release of the album.

Never a summer release Henley plays the song with a wistful nostalgia utilizing summer as a metaphor for his youth. The song works as a reflection on life and his past as much as it is a mirror to our own lives. The accompanying video, directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, was as powerful visually surveying the various phases in Henley's life. But there is indeed a universal, emotional resonance at the song's core that allows everyone to connect.

Henley was older when he recorded the song and The Eagles were all but finished at the time. He must look back and wish he was that old today.

The Boys Of Summer is a gem of pop construction with Henley's incredible musical touches right from the opening. Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell is largely responsible for the success of the song's sound performing and producing on the track. The song peaked only at number five on Billboard but remains far more remarkable as a pop classic than many that have hit the number one spot before or since. However, Henley did justifiably receive a Grammy for the vocal on this track.

The song itself is perfect and not surprisingly many have deferred any go at performing an interpretation of it and though Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet did a nice cover of it, it still doesn't come close to the original.

The album itself had a number of memorable tracks like All She Wants To Do Is Dance and Not Enough Love In The World among my favorites, but I recall in my youth thinking that Building The Perfect Beast was never quite the perfect beast, but rather just missing the mark in its construction.

As solid a recording as it is nothing on it stands head and shoulders next to the eloquence and melodic beauty of The Boys Of Summer. Today still the song recalls nothing but lovely memories from my own youth and somehow that song encapsulates the very best of it in song. It is truly a timeless gem.

Building The Perfect Beast (1984). B+. Recommended. A solid recording darted with some real highlights. The recording remains with you even after all these years.

The Boys Of Summer. A+. The lead off track on the aforementioned recording. It is, for me, one of the best pop songs ever recorded. Essential to this boy's existence.