The Babys
open with strings.
Soften the impact
before the giant
guitar riffs begin.
Appropriately, the lyrics
at least in the first few songs
contain a voluminous
use of the word “baby.”
But these guys rocked
pretty hard, despite
how cute they were,
and you know, that
John Waite character
would go on to have
a long, successful career
because he could really
sing the shit out of
these songs.
“Missing You,” anyone?
They’ve got the gigantic
strings, and horns,
and powerful women
background singers.
A few sweet, giant ballads.
It’s a big sound
for a bunch of babies
and the songs are
strong and the drums
are huge before
drums were huge,
generally speaking,
beyond Bonham anyway
and Mick Tucker from
The Sweet.
The Babys are serving
up some big power pop
that holds up quite nicely.
I’m not embarrassed, not in the least.
Notes on the vinyl edition: used copy of Broken Heart, the 1978 sophomore album from The Babys. An annoying pop rolls around over and over in the first track of side one, otherwise, a good sounding record.
In the event this is the first time you’ve seen a post in this series:
- I’m listening to every record in my collection in alphabetical order and writing a poem-like-thing for each artist represented there.
- It took me only 11 days to listen to all 29 record albums in the “A” section, but it might make sense, to make room for other kinds of writing on the blog, and to give my ears a rest, to attempt a single letter of the alphabet over a month’s time. I don’t know if that will work either–as I’m looking at the vast “B” section ahead. Nearly the entire Bowie catalog is in this section!
michael jarmer 