right between the eyes is a very good pop song, andrew gold is written all over it. and the song ball and chain is also a wonderful song. wax albums can be hit and miss, this first album has the above 2 really really good songs on it and systematic and magnetic heaven are also pretty darn good. the other 6 songs i believe would be for people to judge for themselves. personally i am not a fan of them.
Arrrirght - so I'm ignorant to this stuff, outside of my brother bestowing the virtues of Andrew Gold, and when I got into 10CC (around 2005) he kept mentioning the collaboration. Then a few years back I had like three weeks of obsessing over Thank You for Being a Friend, but I've yet to get around to listening to Wax! So thanks Mark for providing the opportunity! Not entirely sure what to expect. If this is '86, I'm expecting bright production, and I suppose M.O.R. as it stood in the mid-80s, which seemed to be "Every song must be over 4 minutes and have an extended outro". But then these are two very creative gentleman. My mind is open...
I honestly don't really know what to expect really. I am imagining 10cc meets Duran Duran to be honest.... We shall see
Right Between The Eyes I haven't heard this before, so I imagine it didn't get played on Aus radio. It has a boppy eighties pop song feel. It is a well written pop song. It isn't something that would generally have grabbed my attention back then.
Hear No Evil Here we get some classic eighties production. I actually have no problem with eighties production, but I know it is really out of vogue and criticised heavily by all the cool kids. I actually think this is a better song than the single. It is a little more interesting and a little more punchy.
Right Between The Eyes So they put the kangaroo in the video for nothing ? What can you say about this that the video doesn't spell out for everyone: mullets, male ponytail, Addicted To Love girl, extremely complicated instrument virtuosity , 80's production, really catchy and repetitive. Why couldn't Gold release this under his own name ?
Hear No Evil It's not evil I'm hearing, just boring, cheap, simple mindless cliche 80's production *¥£π I'll go into hibernation mode for the rest of Wax.
Right Between the Eyes is the sound of my childhood! I was an 80s radio/video kid, well really I was a 90s kid but my brother two years older than me and I were very engaged in pop culture as soon as we were conscious, so we were a 3 and 5 year old in 1988 hearing Tears for Fears and the Cure and Go West and the Bangles and Katrina and the Waves. We would've completely engaged on this stuff, and I suspect my brother did. Aiming for a hit! It's the got John Oates guitar stabs, those Go West synth horns, a little bit of The Cure in there, though if this is Phil Thornalley it certainly doesn't sound like the Cure album he worked on. I'll return to this one.
Hear No Evil, I'm really surprised this album has eluded me. Gonna have to talk to my 37 year old brother about this over Xmas, this is exactly the type of thing we were listening to ages 3-7. A benefit I think, in that we didn't know how developed recorded music had become - how far from performed music it had come. We were definitely, with limitied terminology of course, appreciating the arrangement. And as for performance, Andrew Gold is right up their with Kev for breath control, not as ice-creamy of course. The reversed echo has me thinking of New Kids on the Block, which sounds like this but came a couple years later. This is vastly superior in performance to something as hilariously flat as New Kids on the Block. The songwriting is fine, they are trying, but what they're trying to do is fit in to the radio landscape, when we know both of these two are capable of defining and rising above the standard. Roxette has come up for obvious reasons in the past couple weeks. They rose above it, while playing by the rules. In the Finn Brothers thread aobut a month ago they tackled Tim Finn's Big Canoe. I'm feeling that's a similar thing. Better songwriters trying to make it on radio. Although I don't think this is "meal ticket" music, I think they're just trying to give their music the best chance.
Shadows Of Love This is a well constructed pop song. I feel like I may have heard this back in the day.... I personally have no problem with the eighties sound, and style. For me it is just another variety of sound in the decades of music that I love. The odd thing is, although I think this is pretty decent, I can't see me going out and buying it, and I am wondering if to some degree I mainly like the music that I have a nostalgic connection to in the time slot. Sorry to ponder during the thread, but I am finding it odd that I feel this isn't bad at all, but it just doesn't quite appeal to me. It's an odd dynamic. So yea, I think this is a well constructed pop song. I think @ChristopherTeuma has hit the nail on the head for me here, in the post just above " "
Marie Claire Another well constructed pop song. I can see how someone back in 86 that connected with this album would really like/love it. I guess at this stage for me, it is just a style that I don't feel these days, and I don't have that nostalgic connection to the music to help it rise above. There are some nice melodic structures, and although very obviously eighties, in their context the instrumentation is well arranged and executed.
Ball and Chain We start with some eighties drums and a synth low, that builds up and into a chordal riff, with some power chords behind it. I think this song has a little bit more to it, to my ears at least. I think there is an urgency that lifts it up a little from the straight up pop of the first few songs. Again please excuse my unfamiliarity with the material, and this is still obviously eighties pop, but something about this track makes it stand slightly higher in my listening opinion than the other songs on here so far. I am not overly convinced by the little rap breakdown, but it is certainly no worse than so many other pop songs of the era. On the whole I reckon this is a good track.
Systematic It is interesting to me, that as we move through these tracks, the writing is standing out to me more than the genre and style. These are actually pretty well written and arranged. I think there is a just a certain generic eighties pop feel about them. I know speculating on could have beens is a little pointless, but hearing these tracks now makes me wonder what they would have been like in a different era's stylistic and production aesthetic.
agreed, the whole synth-drum sound of the 80's totally ruins a whole lot of songs. and most of the wax catalog suffers this fate, although their recently released live album is quite unlike the studio stuff.
Break Out We start with a fun little series of sound effects and then break into the song. Someone mentioned Go West earlier, and I can hear them in this track for sure. This is very good mid eighties pop, and that is the blessing and the curse that somewhat haunts several of these songs. I do really imagine that if I had heard and connected with this in the mid eighties, that I would probably think this was really good. I suppose the problem for me, in relation to this, is by 1986 I was burnt out of eighties pop, for the most part. No absolutes there, because there is always something that grabs your attention, but for the most part I was exploring other musical fields. I had started trying to seriously record my own stuff. Towards the end of the year I was in my first band.... and I also had a job that I really hated, and an alcohol consumption issue that was distracting me.... Lots of memories coming back from this period in time. So like I say, very well crafted mid eighties pop, but it never really came to my party.
Only A Visitor We get a nice little dancing synth pattern, with a solid kick drum. This comes across more of an eighties pop ballad. It again is structured very well and has nice use of space. I think a few listens and I could get into this. It has an earnest feeling about it, that works pretty well.
Agree with Mark on this period. I simply could not get into the History Mix, and Wax is just too generic '80s for me ... so far. Wax doesn't repulse me like the History Mix, but I'm still having to work too hard to find the melodies. Sigh, I miss the effortless tunefulness of Eric Stewart.
I believe I bought this pretty close to when it came out. I love Right Between the Eyes but the rest of the album has never done a lot for me. This album alas is an exemplar of some of the worst of 1980s pop production. I wonder what could have been if they had gotten a real band together with a more organic sound.
I think it also stems from Kevin wanting to create mint asmbig as I’m Not In Love. He was both critical and genuinely envious of the song.
Rise Up We start with the sampled vocal effect that got a little mileage in the eighties, and move into a nice layered keyboard. When the vocal comes in, it starts with a backing vocal that wouldn't be completely out of place on a 10cc track. The vocal sections work like a call and response set up, and work pretty well. The chorus also works pretty well. I think I like this song a little more, because although it is still deep in the eighties (not that, that actually bothers me. I have no aversion to eighties sounds, and production, I just found a lot of the mid to late eighties pop to be a little bland) I know this is only the first time I have ever heard anything on this album, but so far this track has been the most ear catching for me.
Magnetic Heaven It is interesting to me that they decided to close the album with an instrumental. Most of the album is very firmly in the commercial pop music zone of the mid eighties, and unless looking for the street cred that goes with having an instrumental, it seems a strange way to finish off in some ways. It is a pretty decent instrumental. I am sure those that find eighties production kryptonite will not like it, but it is enjoyable without being amazing. It has a cinematic kind of feel about it. Like a collage of textures
as i stated earlier, a very nice first effort by gouldman and gold........nothing earth shattering, but a quite pleasant listening experience.......more to come.
Good luck finding Wax on any of the streaming services. There were/are multiple artists with this name, some of the albums are listed as Wax UK, etc.
