There's no accounting for taste, and everyone has their favorite record, but I submit that the Records' Shades In Bed from 1979 is about as perfect as a rock and roll album gets. Is there a more potent blend of tenderness and crassness, hooks and melodies, Beach Boys harmonies and pub rock verve, power and pop, humor and earnestness, sex and romance, guitars and drums, epiphany and dislocation, beauty and disappointment, heady adolescence and rueful adulthood, ugliness and lyricism, and pop ambition and daily grind than this remarkable gem? Did I mention "Starry Eyes"? "Teenarama"? "Up All Night?" Did I mention the hooks?
There's a high stack of albums from 1979 that have long been crossed off of the list of records that still matter to and resonate with me. Shades In Bed remains high on that list.
4 comments:
I agree with every word. One of the all-time greats, a debut album without a less than stellar song end to end.
c-c-c-cola is all you ever drink....Love that.
"Starry Eyes" is so great despite its lyrics about being burned by the music biz, something that nearly every listener will never experience. Similarly the popularity of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page," about life on the road, puzzles me as the listening audience doesn't have much of a connection with that.
Enjoying your Jerry Lee book!
Best wishes,
Huw Gower
Thank you, Huw! Just saw this.
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