The two tunes by The Motels
that are part of my musical memory
are the breakthrough hits, “Only the
Lonely” and “Suddenly, Last Summer.”
I found two albums by the band recently
in somebody’s used bin, the self-
titled debut, and their fifth outing,
Shock, neither album of which
includes these songs. I didn’t have
these albums when I was a kid,
even though I remember distinctly
liking these tunes and thinking that
Martha was a total babe. I picked
them up based on the memory of
those two songs, thinking that here
was a band that I probably should
have heard more from. None of
the songs on these albums are
recognizable to me. She’s got a
distinctive voice and the band is
solid, but it’s hard to see what folks
were so excited about. On their debut,
in 1979, they don’t quite seem to know
what they were about–some Blondie-like
rockers, a few bluesy things, a saxophone
line here and there, a very strange
reggae feel on one tune that busts
into a swing thing, underwhelming guitar
solos, and a real dearth of definite
or memorable lyric or melodic hooks.
The record is strikingly thin and dry.
There’s minimal production–the only
discernible effects are focused on
Martha’s voice. It’s not a bad record
by any stretch of the imagination,
but it fails to capture my imagination.
To me, it’s best when it gets kind of
weird, but those moments are few.
Except in the case of the last tune
of the record, which is a lovely pop
song, maybe the best song on the
album–and it wasn’t a single.
Six years later, with Shock, they have
morphed into a big, loud, keyboard-
heavy, massively drum soaked, new wave
influenced mainstream pop band.
Outside of that signature
lead vocal, one would hardly know
it was the same band–which is
likely true of many groups that
began in the late 70’s and continued
making records into the middle of
the 80’s. Something in the water in
combination with the explosion of
new music technology and electronic
toys designed to make everything
larger than life and explosive worked
to make almost every record from
the era sound alike. Is this record
better than the first? In some ways,
yeah. They had already had their
two massive hit songs, so they had
learned some things about songwriting,
but I hear them on this record trying
too hard to make another big hit
and failing. While the songs might
be better structurally, melodically,
and the production here is the exact
opposite of the dry, thin sound of the debut,
the lyrics seems to be kind of dumb
and everything has a kind of top 40
sheen to it from which I generally recoil.
It’s not a bad record either, by any
stretch of the imagination. I find it
actually a lot more interesting, but
I’m still pretty lukewarm on the whole
affair. The Motels, a good band with a
few great songs and a dynamic front
woman, who I may or may not have had
a crush on as an 18 year old boy,
are just not stirring the soul.
Notes on the vinyl editions: The Motels, Capital Records, 1979, used vinyl, black. Shock, Capital Records, 1985, used (promotional copy only) vinyl, black.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 