It’s a Dead Man’s Party! The Oingo Boingo Album by Album Thread

Lived in Missouri all my life, never been to SoCal. Heard whispers about them, saw them in Back to School, and then bought the Dead Man's Party album. By the time "No One Lives Forever" came on I knew I had to get their back catalog. Loved them ever since.

 

I'm from Cel Cal, just north of So Cal. I've never bought, owned, nor heard any Oingo Bonigo album, but I did see them live, once, quite by Serendipity, in 1983?

I was a bespotted 13- year old growing up in XSanLuisnobispo<CA, circa 1983-4, blissfully unawares of oingo D"Boingo, but my good mate and mentor, an English Bloke named Adam, ten years older than the weed we smoked together, he knew Danny Elfman from his youth in London. ZoS0, when Zee Bonigos came thru town to play Cal Poly, we went to crash the Dead Man's Partay!, and Adam got us backstage after the show and we hung and talked with Danny a good long spell-- this was pre-BIG TIME OST Fame and Fortune: I was of course totally unawares of how cool this evening (concert and after-party) really was at the time.

Only later...mush lager later...



Did I RE-ember the Jack In The Boxes with the Clowns popping out of them On each side of the Stage...

 

Nice to see some New Englanders on here, but I'm a transplant to Mass myself. Lived in NoCal most of the 90s but had family down in SoCal. I always enjoyed KROQ, KWOD, and Live 105 alternative radio stations while driving all over the state for work and recreation reasons!

 

Happy Halloween folks.

 

I remember wham I first heard of Oingo Boingo, following their debut 10″ for I.R.S. Records in 1980. I was listening to WPRK-FM around that time and had discovered that college radio had moved on with the times. Listening to WPRK-FM three years earlier revealed a playlist of ELP deep cuts! Obviously, things had changed over time! The cuts I’d heard from the 10″ EP were jerky-jerky, horn driven quirk rock with a heavy New Wave patina. The band had a feel somewhere between DEVO and Frank Zappa.

I was dimly aware of their origins as an alternate theater group, The Mystic Knights Of The Oingo Boingo. I admired them, but never took the bait until years later. Actually, I’d bought a copy of Danny Elfman’s “So-Lo” album on LP when it came out. Technically, that was the first Oingo Boingo recording in the Record Cell, since it was in all but name the fourth Oingo Boingo album, but that went out in the Great Vinyl Purge and has not been replaced on CD, in spite of the best intentions. I guess the idea there was “Oingo Boingo is such a weird name, let’s try Danny’s instead and see if anything happens.” Well, “Dead Man’s Party” in 1985 was another Oingo Boingo album, so we can see how that went over.

When A+M released the first batch of Oingo Boingo re-releases on the spinning, silver discs, I immediately bought their second album, “Nothing To Fear” since I had great memories of seeing the band on MV3 lip synching the deep cuts “Nothing To Fear” and “Insects” to a studio audience of Square Pegs wannabes. Shortly afterward, I also bought the CD of their third album, “Good For Your Soul,” and until a few years back, that was the extent of my Oingo Boingo collection. Such that it lasted until the present, anyway.

At one point, I had copies of the mid-late period albums “Boi-Ngo” and “Dark At The End Of The Tunnel,” that a Boingoloid friend had given to me but they failed to impress as on the former, too many harsh edges had been filed off for my tastes, and the latter was out and out as dismal an album as I’d ever heard. Almost Oingo Boingo goes grunge, as unappealing as that picture is. The video I saw from the final, titular “Boingo” album was even worse! Gray, depressing music from a gray, depressing album! It seemed like the band moving from A+M to distributor MCA saw them being filed down to better fit in the mother corporation’s round holes.

As for Elfman’s antipathy towards the band that made his reputation to the point where someone might hand a soundtrack to him, perhaps he’s embarrassed by Oingo Boingo because it didn't exactly fatten his wallet/reputation like all the soundtrack work did. Too often, artists conflate success with artistic significance and importance. Not me. Those soundtracks were of little consequence. Unlike his performance in the "Little Girls" video his brother directed. Anyone who saw that has images of him from it burned into their cortex!

 

Previous post notwithstanding, in person, I think they were pretty localized in the LA basin. I lived in Orange County in ‘80-81 (where they were played on the radio) then San Diego into ‘87 (where I don’t remember hearing them). KROQ sounded so futuristic in 1980: “Rock of the ‘80s and ‘90s!!” By far, best album is Boingo Alive, a must-buy, and buy it on vinyl

(PS: Growing up in CT, we didn’t realize how totally spoiled we were to have Zappa in NYC on multiple Halloweens in the ‘70s)

 

I didn't get into them until 2012 (and it's still never too late to get into them!) I only knew the song "Weird Science" from the movie Weird Science. But I also remembered the song "Better Luck Next Time" from the movie The Last American Virgin. It would always randomly pop up in my head, so one day in 2012 I finally looked it up online and was surprised to find out he was the same guy who did the music for a lot of Tim Burton's films (which I always loved.) I always knew Danny Elfman did the music to those films, so it was surprising finally noticing he was the same guy behind those songs as well as doing the Simpson's theme music and also singing the songs from The Nightmare Before Christmas.

 

It was credited to Danny because they were in the middle of switching labels from I.R.S. to A&M and the Oingo Boingo name was tied up in red tape. To keep the momentum going, they released that album under Danny's name to circumvent the dispute until they regained the rights to the name, which is why they reverted back to it on Dead Man's Party. Elfman did say he used the So-Lo moniker as an opportunity to write some slower tempo songs that wouldn't necessarily be considered Oingo Boingo songs, but it's an Oingo Boingo album for sure in lineup and mostly in sound.

I don't think Dark at the End of the Tunnel is grunge at all. It's pretty light, maybe the lightest Boingo album there is in sound thanks to the polished Chris Lord-Alge mix. I think the music is more serious in mature, but as for being out and out depressing, I don't hear that at all. The last song "Try to Believe" may be the most upbeat song they've ever done. There's stuff like "Skin" that's darker, but it sounds more gothic and theatrical like what Danny was doing with his soundtrack work around the time rather than dejected, simplistic, and whiny like Nirvana. Besides, Dark at the End of the Tunnel came out in early 1990 and was recorded in May 1989, a few years before grunge became a notable commercial force, and a month before Nirvana's debut was even released. So unless Danny was trying to be Soundgarden, Green River, Mudhoney, or Mother Love Bone (none of whom were yet signed to a major label), no dice on the grunge thing. I doubt he knew what grunge was then since he was so busy by that point in his career and not a Seattle native. Dark at the End of the Tunnel is one of my favorite albums of theirs for songwriting and instrumentation, I think they hit a real peak on that one, and Danny's vocals never sounded better. Now their last album Boingo, I agree they definitely lifted a few playing cards from grunge on that one. I don't enjoy that album as much as the others, but even that isn't predominantly grunge. They're too skilled to stick to such a simplistic sound as grunge, and "Hey!" is the only song on their where I think it sounds unrelentingly '90s from a songwriting standpoint. The production is totally '90s cardboard box drum bad grunge production.

I don't think he's ever said that he's embarrassed by the band at all. Huffington Post misled everyone by putting out that click bait headline. He just doesn't like looking at his past work, and that includes his film scores. The only thing he ever said that he found embarrassing from his Oingo Boingo days was the "Weird Science" video, but I think he's proud of everything else he achieved. He even redid "Running on a Treadmill" a few months ago, a deep cut if there ever was one.

 

Alright, let's hit the next one!



Only a Lad (1981)

Tracks and Ratings

1. Little Girls – 5/5
Great lead-off song – one of the legends of the Boingo catalog. This song is definitely worthy of a separate discussion. I see this more as a cautionary song about “jailbait,” not some kind of pedophilia anthem. Its subject matter is definitely edgy though - one of those pre-PC songs that maybe doesn’t get published today.

2. Perfect System – 3/5
Dystopian music? Yep! While it may not be among the best song musically on the album, it’s still good, and a demonstration of the biting, satirical lyrics Danny was capable of.

3. On the Outside – 5/5
Three songs in, and we’ve already got 2 of the great Boingo classics under our belt. The misfit’s anthem, I think this song is one of the greats.

4. Capitalism – 5/5
A song in the vein of the Dead Kennedys’ “Holiday in Cambodia,” this one takes a musical swipe at inexperienced “middle class socialist brats” advocating revolution against “the rich”. Musically frenetic in the unique Oingo Boingo style.

5. You Really Got Me – 3/5
A cover of the Kinks classic, this one puts the Boingo spin on it. It’s enjoyable, but not particularly memorable. Not the kind of cover that makes you forget the original.

6. Only a Lad – 5/5
The re-recorded version of the song that first debuted on the EP absolutely rocks. It now has the bite and energy that makes it a classic – and you can make the argument that it hasn’t even achieved its final form yet at this point. Always a highlight of their live shows as well.

7. What you See – 4/5
Solid. To me, this last section of the album is the bridge to the sound of Nothing to Fear and Good for Your Soul. More important, it brings the depth that makes it a great album overall.

8. Controller – 4.5/5
This is my hidden gem on the album, obscured by the abundance of greatest hits. Great energy and a funky ska-punk feel, doused in paranoia.



9. Imposter – 2.5/5
The weakest song on the album. Musically and lyrically meh, and too industry-focused to resonate. I would, however, love to know if Danny had anyone in particular in mind here.

10. Nasty Habits – 5/5
What can I say here? A wild and crazy ride into the pervasive perversion of the human race, with a nod to its ubiquity throughout history. Boingo at its, fun, awkward best!


Overall Rating: 4.5/5

Oingo Boingo is one of those bands where my favorite album is often whichever one I listened to last. Only a Lad is definitely a strong contender for my favorite, though. To my mind, this was Oingo Boingo’s (one and only) punk album. The depth is great, with four general-consensus greats, the hidden treasure of Controller, and a few solid album cuts. The pacing and energy are great throughout. Of all the early Boingo albums, I think this is one of the most timeless. The audio quality on this album is standout great. Both the vinyl and the CD are sonic treats. The politics of some songs are likely to have a negative impact for some, but if you don’t think you’re in the crowd that would be bothered, then this would be a great place to enter the Boingo catalog.

Lyrical Highlight

I never was a punk
I never shot junk
I never even tried
Counter culture passed me right by

Alright, what say you about Only a Lad?!

 

Great to see folks from all over the place on the thread. I thought it might just be a bunch of Cali residents and refugees, but looks like we have a nice mix!

 

Only a Lad is great, definitely a contender for one of their best albums. It's the silliest for sure, and the songs make me laugh like none of the others. It's the one that I can hear the most definitive influence on Mr. Bungle who worshiped these guys clearly. A thing with Boingo albums is on most of them I don't hear any filler. Even songs I don't like it seems like Danny is always trying his hardest by layering as many parts as possible on them. I don't think there's a duff track on their debut, a great album.

 

Oops. That should read, "switching labels from I.R.S./A&M to MCA."

 

I was a big Oingo Boingo fan in middle school but never saw them live. I think about the band from time to time but without the same enthusiasm I had for them when I was thirteen or fourteen.

I don't know if it was mentioned but have you ever seen their performance on The Gong show when they were still The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo. This is when it was Richard Elfman's band.

 

I was born and raised in Pennsylvania and have never left the east coast of the US, so CA may as well be France to me in a lot of ways.

Like I said, Boingo wound up on my radar early courtesy of my Dad's record collection. He was never a huge fan, but his sister - my aunt - was always pretty plugged in musically. I'd bet even money that they were gifts from her.

One of the real joys I got to experience with Boingo was getting all of their albums on CD at once courtesy of a still relatively new Amazon.com in the early '00s. Listening to their entire discography after only owning two of their albums (I'd long-since sourced CD copies of Nothing to Fear and Good for Your Soul, but had nothing else) was a real trip!

I've got mixed feelings on Only a Lad. To me, the highlights are "Little Girls" (even if the lyrics are harder for me to listen to in my 30s than they were in my teens), "On the Outside," "Capitalism," and "Only a Lad." Four out of ten isn't bad, but something about the rest of the album fails to land for me. In some ways, it's like they're traveling, but not quite arriving. There's still some punk affectations (and, if I'm honest, I don't have a lot of reverence for punk in general) and they don't quite come across as genuine to me. Where the album is good, it's great, but the synthesis of the sounds hasn't quite come together yet - at least not to my ears.

Funny enough, the image of the band was fully in place. The video for "Little Girls" nails that surreal, "Tim Burton before Tim Burton" thing.

This is by no means a bad album, but having come in on their second and third albums, this is definitely one of those cliched "first albums mostly for completists" because the really good stuff came later.

Something which does stand out for me here is "Capitalism." I mean, you've got the obvious political stuff going on here, but is the song really political? In a lot of ways, it's a spearing of a type of shallow person who gravitates towards politics. Elfman (mostly) chooses his targets well across his career in that he's not necessarily a "topical" writer as much as he's talking about human experiences and types of personalities. As much as it's tempting to look strictly at "which side" of a political argument he's lampooning here, his real target is the TYPE of person who is just expressing themselves in a political fashion.

Arguably, it's the same thing he'd do on the last album in terms of religion. At no point does he really go after the idea of being spiritual or religious itself. It's the hypocrisy and pageantry of the thing he goes after. Is it any different when he's going after the "middle class socialist brat" here?

Just an observation on a song with a (relatively) unique target.

Come to think of it... are there any other songs that hit on this topic? None spring to mind for me.

 

Though I knew Boingo from MV3 playing Little Girls and Private Life, I didn't get into them until I found the Skeletons in the Closet comp LP in a cut out bin in the 90's. I then started slowly collecting a few CD's, namely the first two albums followed by the third and fourth albums years later. I got the EP sealed in a cutout bin in the 90's but was not yet really into the band and eventually sold it. Of course, I'm kicking myself now but I've since picked up a copy of the 10" edition. Did anyone mention yet that the recordings of Ain't This The Life differ between the 10" and 12" editions?

I appreciate the EP now but find the version of Only A Lad on the EP rather tame compared to the re-recorded version on the first LP.

 

Only A Lad is a great first album. Perhaps a little too frantic at points but the formula is in place. Little Girls was just bizarre and creepy when I was a kid, and I don't mean the possible ways people can read into the lyrics. I just found the band super oddballs at the age of 12 and I was still relatively self-conscious about the music I listened to at the time. But for a good while now I find Little Girls a load of a fun and a great album opener. There are quite a few good songs on Only A Lad, and when I hear Nasty Habits I hear Pee Wee's Big Adventure, it's that Elfman sound that would become a trademark of his film work and it seemed to start with this song.

 

Interesting take, and one I'll happily entertain if it keeps politics from infecting the thread!

As far as other songs with the same target, "Holiday in Cambodia" is the one I immediately thought of. I'd say it's even harsher than Danny's take.

 

Completely agree that Boingo albums consistently have solid album cuts beyond the hits, and its one of the things that makes them such a pleasure to listen to. Even on digital, I don't skip much. I find it funny that our takes on the silliness of the album are completely different. I see this as their last "serious" album until at least Dead Man's Party. Now that I think about it, maybe surreal is a better term than silly for where I think the next couple albums go.

 

Stuff like Nasty Habits and the general atmosphere of anything goes insanity forms the basis of my opinion. I think it's their most energized albums. A madhouse!

 

Will we be doing Nothing to Fear soon?

 

I plan on posting it tonight.

 

Nothing to Fear (1982)

1. Grey Matter – 5/5
Another winning lead-off song, and one of the greats. Most Oingo Boingo albums come out swinging!

2. Insects – 3.5/5
A whimsical nonsense song with buzzing sound effects. The panning insect sounds will likely make or break you on the song. One of several very “visual” songs on the album. (I use “nonsense song” as a term of endearment, mostly because I don’t know how the heck to even classify them. Surreal, maybe?)

3. Private Life -5/5
True greatness! Another driving, paranoid, punk-ish song, and the percussion leading it off just works.

4. Wild Sex (in the Working Class) – 5/5
Perhaps not a hidden gem, as it’s pretty well known among fans, but it’s one that doesn’t get the credit it deserves. The whimsical factory sounds make it one of the most visual songs I’ve ever heard. You can almost picture a Tim Burton Claymation video to accompany it. (A video of the factory where the song takes place, people! Get out of the gutter!)


5. Running on a Treadmill – 2.5/5
This one feels kind of like an orphan on the album – like it can’t quite decide what it wants to be. Interesting, though, that this was the song that Decided to revisit recently during covid.

6. Whole Day Off - 4/5
Another nonsense song, but this one is the best of its type on the album. Another one that feels like it needs a Claymation video.

7. Nothing to Fear (but Fear itself) 5/5
The last of the three Only a Lad style throwbacks is another classic. In a nutshell – don’t be dumb, you have plenty to fear!

8. Why’d we Come? - 4/5
If you’re looking for a truly hidden gem on the album, this is it. It has some of the musical stylings of the more whimsical songs on the album, mixed with a reasonably cohesive critique of the human pursuit of progress. Give it a minute or so to get going.

9. Islands – 1.5/5
A rare filler. Aside from the musical themes that sound like the backing to a horror movie, not much here. Rather incoherent and 2 minutes too long. (Somebody help me place the movie that this song reminds me of!!!)

10. Reptiles and Samurai – 4/5
Another in the nonsense song family. It is over the top for sure, with the serious sounding “narrations” of the differences between reptiles and samurai. But it’s fun and it works!


Overall Rating: 4.25/5

One of my Boingo Favorites, and another greatest hits generator. This one shifts the musical balance away from the more straightforward punk-ish sound of Only a Lad and toward the whimsical sound that is uniquely early 80's Oingo Boingo. The trio of "Grey Matter", "Private Life", and "Nothing to Fear" could be swapped out with "What You See" and "Controller" from Only a Lad and I think you’d have two darn near perfect albums.

That said, I think this is the most unique album from Oingo Boingo, and something that just sounds like nothing else. Sure, there are a couple weak spots, but it works very well overall.

It’s amazing to me how visual this album is. In retrospect, I think it’s easy to see why Tim Burton picked up on Danny as someone who could make movie music.

For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, I have always felt like there was some weird connection between this album and the movie Beetlejuice, beyond the fact that the movie is a Burton/Elfman combo. This album always makes me think of the movie and vice versa.


Lyrical Highlight
Hey neighbor let me give you some advice
The Russians are about to pulverize us
In our sleep tonight
That is if the crazy Arabs
Or the riots don't get us first
And the fire will rain down from the sky
The fire will rain down from the sky

(my comment...the more things change, the more they stay the same)

 

So I ranked Only a Lad above Nothing to Fear. Agree or disagree?

 

Carpenter's Halloween? I like "Islands" a lot. It's super heavy and crawls along with a menacing deliberation. Sounds like something that Faith No More would have recorded for Angel Dust. I'll post more complete thoughts on the album tomorrow, as I'm totally bushed tonight.

 

Right out of the gate, I have to confess that I'm biased when it comes to this album. It was my introduction to the band and certain allowances for those rose-tinted glasses must be made.

That said, this may be the only Oingo Boingo album that I honestly feel doesn't have a hair out of place. I don't think a single song in this running order is excessive and none of the songs come off to me as filler.

A funny memory: when I first got into this album as a kid, I had it on cassette and somehow managed to start listening to it backwards (i.e. side b and then side a). That being the case, for the longest time, I thought it opened with "Whole Day Off," which may still be my favorite track off the album. Once I caught on to the error of my ways, I had to admit that, even though my favorite didn't land until halfway through the album, the "proper" sequence is pretty solid all around.

Looking over the track list again, it makes me realize how much I approach this album as an ALBUM and seldom listen to the songs as "orphans" unless I've got a shuffle going on. The songs that really make a strong impression are probably the "weird" ones as far as anyone else is concerned.

"Insects" is a ton of fun. It's like the Talking Heads filtered through David Bowie's cocaine, chili peppers, and milk phase. Very tense and edgy with groove.

"Running on a Treadmill" is great too. I just always loved this one, musically. A bit more life experience, and I can relate to the lyrics a bit better as well.

"Islands" is probably the darkest thing on the album and it can feel a bit monolithic. Again, I love it. Danny's really doing something unique with the vocals here. Oh, and is it just me, or is the solo section basically the solo from "Hotel California" coming from the basement of Hell?

Like I said, there's not a bum track here, but the original post didn't give a ton of credit to these tracks, so I felt the need to boost them myself.

One last note: something that stands out to me even now is how much "Whole Day Off" feels like a musical mission statement. You open with a pretty crunchy riff. Ok, we're in rock territory and it's competent stuff. Almost immediately, you add the marimbas and get put on notice that something weird is going down and then the horns come in. It's kind of an encapsulation of the musical motifs Boingo were so good (and unique) with.

Strong disagreement!

Honestly, I feel like Only a Lad is the blueprint and Nothing to Fear is the actual building. The proof of concept is there, but the execution is lacking on the debut.

Just my take.