Trouser Press, May 1978: Difference between revisions
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<center><h3> This Year's Model </h3></center> | <center><h3> This Year's Model </h3></center> | ||
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<center><h3> A word from our chief </h3></center> | |||
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<center> Ira Robbins </center> | |||
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[[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page 03.jpg|100px|border|right]] | |||
If this be the place to sound one's horn, let 'er rip. Five months ago we put Elvis Costello on the [[Trouser Press, December 1977|cover]] of this magazine as the ''Face for 1978''. In the cover feature Dave wrote, "...listen to Elvis. The guy has something to say, and his record has touched me like no other album this year. Make Elvis king once again." Apparently, 'nuff said. The week of this writing, ''My Aim Is True'' is in the charts at 32 and the new one is on the way. A major headlining tour has just been announced and it seems likely that ''This Year's Model'' will substantially outsell ''Aim'', definitely establishing El as a major figure in pop music — in America as well as England. We're mighty pleased about the lad's success and feel compelled to say, as so many others have said before: | |||
<center> You read it here first! </center> | |||
We've always figured ''TP'' to be the place for new artists with real talent and individuality to get covered seriously before popular acceptance finds them. It's impossible to figure who's going to be commercially successful and who's going to end up as a treasured cult idol, but we've always tried to let the world (or at least our readership) know who we think has some-thing to offer. Sometimes we connect big, sometimes we don't. In any case, let Elvis stand as a testament to our nerve and taste, if not star-picking abilities. End of ego trip. | |||
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<small>Photo by [[Linda Danna Robbins]].</small><br> | |||
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[[Ira Robbins]] reviews ''[[This Year's Model]]''. | [[Ira Robbins]] reviews ''[[This Year's Model]]''. | ||
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[[Tim Windsor]] reviews [[Nick Lowe]]'s ''Pure Pop For Now People''. | |||
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Also includes ads for ''This Year's Model'' and ''[[Live Stiffs]]''. | |||
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[[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page 38.jpg| | [[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page 38.jpg|380px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Page scan.</small> | <br><small>Page scan.</small> | ||
[[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press back cover.jpg|380px|border]] | |||
<br><small>Back cover advertisement.</small> | |||
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<center><h3> | <center><h3> Pure Pop For Now People </h3></center> | ||
<center>''' Nick Lowe </center> | |||
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<center> | <center> Tim Windsor </center> | ||
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{{Bibliography text}} | {{Bibliography text}} | ||
[[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page | [[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page 39.jpg|100px|border|right]] | ||
These are strange times for rock music. While the punks vomit their way into the hearts and headlines of the world, hard-line old wavers (boring old farts, if you must) continue to pull in the big bucks and Debby Boone (DEBBY BOONE?) wins the Grammy for best new performer. In the midst of all this stands Nick Lowe. Thank God for Nick Lowe. | |||
On the surface Nick seems to be playing pleasant tunes, nothing more than the "pure pop for now people" of the American album's title but before long you realize that he is playing with your mind, turning it inside out and showing you a lot that you might have missed without him. | |||
The closing track, "Music for Money," attacks the less than noble motives behind the mainstream rock bands in a song that sounds dangerously close to Queen's "Get Down, Make Love." Lowe parodies the "sound" in a two-chord riff rocker, telling us that it's all "Music for money/Gibsons for gain." You'll never find a better Kiss song anywhere; watch for it, coming soon to a stadium or hockey arena near you... | |||
If the definitive book on the business of rock is ever published, it'll have to include the lyrics to 'They Call It Rock." The song takes us along the road to glory with a band that hits the big time until... | |||
"They cut another record, it never was a hit, And someone in the newspaper said it was shit." | |||
The only complaint I have is that just about every song on this record sounds like something I've heard before. (That's pop!...Ed.) Snatches of "The Boys are Back in Town" and "Happy Heart" catch my ear — just as I'm sure Nick planned it. Some might see this as nothing more than out and out theft but there's more at work here — it's Nick's sense of the absurd. Setting Adolf Hitler against a Beach Boyish melody requires a twisted wit and Nick Lowe is always at hand to supply it. Often, he will echo Kurt Vonnegut as in the "nation of two" philosophy in "Tonight" or the direct quote of K.V., "So it goes." | |||
Despite his penchant for eccentricity (if you aren't convinced, check out Marie Provost, a song inspired by Kenneth Anger's "Hollywood Babylon" chapter about a silent film queen who was eaten by her dachshund), Lowe never loses sight of the fact that he is a musician above all else. Great music abounds. He returns to the haunting quality of "Endless Sleep" (from Bowi) in "36" High," a subdued number characterized by Nick's vocal, which sounds like he went beyond singing at the microphone — he got inside it. | |||
(The UK album differs from the US in exactly four ways. 1) The track order is totally different. 2) "Heart of the City" is studio in the US, live in the UK. 3) "They Call it Rock" on the US is replaced by "Shake and Pop," a slower, different arrangement of the same song. 4) The US LP includes an extra track, "Rollershow" that was on one of Lowe's Japanese (now English) Bay City parody singles. Also, the UK LP is titled ''Jesus of Cool''. America's not quite ready for rock on the cross, hunh? — Ed.) | |||
''Jesus of Cool''?? Well, I don't know about the rest of the world, but Yours Truly has been converted into a card-carrying member of Nick's rock 'n' roll religion. This isn't the stupid "Fonzie cool" that has billions of pre-pubescent midgets jamming their thumbs in the air. No, this isn't a cool you find on T-shirts, this is a cool you feel. He's got it. Jesus, he's cool. | |||
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[[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press cover.jpg|x120px]] | [[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press cover.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Cover.</small> | [[image:1978-05-00 Trouser Press page 17.jpg|x120px|border]] | ||
<br><small>Cover and ''[[Live Stiffs]]'' ad.</small> | |||
{{Bibliography notes footer}} | {{Bibliography notes footer}} |
Latest revision as of 02:40, 4 September 2020
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