Elton Motello – “Pop Art”
So, back when I had graduated high school I spent a summer working for a newly opened antique store in my developing town. At the time, it seemed almost like a vacation from my fast food job, but really it wasn’t much of a job but rather a group of people selling other peoples trash, but not making any profit. After my first two weeks of working there (and sorting the records we had for sale) my boss had told me, that they couldn’t afford to pay me for my first two weeks, but instead gave me the boxes of records we had for sale, that I had just organized. Among those records, was this album.
Now, going into this, I thought Elton Motello was a singular person, but much to my surprise it’s actually a band fronted by singer, Alan Ward, who also performed under the moniker Elton Motello. Kind of pulling an Alice Cooper there. So, the album opens with the titular track, “Pop Art” and I realized, my copy is slightly warped (but then again, I don’t know where it came from before I got it – and I know it survived at least one flood) – the song is bassy, fast paced, and you know what, it’s catchy. We follow up with “Can’t Explain” comes next, and it’s another catchy track, the guitar playing really sticks out on this album. The chorus on this song is also pretty good. “Night Sister” follows, and I’m not sure what that intro was but I liked it, the vocals are very similar to the Talking Heads on this track, but the sound just is something that I can’t quite put my finger on. The song kind of just dies out before just popping back up with some Jose Feliciano sound guitar licks. “Falling Like a Domino” comes next, and this one kind of comes off as one of those songs that is straight up my alley, I dig it. It’s got that repetitive guitar lick, and the strange keyboard playing and the Oingo Boingo-esque vocals. “Out of Limit” comes next, and it’s almost like an 80’s western theme, with the jangly guitar chords and the synthesizer in the back, with that percussion line holding everything together. It is an instrumental, it is great. We close out the A-Side with “20th Century Fox” and it is not the Doors song by the same name. It’s got a steady drum line paired nicely with the bass and the jangly guitar. So far, not a bad album.
“In the Heart of the City” opens the B-Side, and if it wasn’t for the slight warp in my record, I’d assume that it’s pretty good, it does skip a fair bit, but from what I’ve heard so far it does seem like a not bad track. Of course, I could pull it up on Spotify, but that kind of ruins what we’re doing, doesn’t it? It does have some pretty good bass on this track. There is a lot of repetition on this song, so at some points I can’t tell if my record is skipping or if it’s the song. “Pocket Calculator” comes next, and it’s paced song, lots of drums and percussion in this one. It’s also just over two and a half minutes long. It does have a bit of that punk sound, and from what I have read, Alan Ward was a member of the glam punk band, Bastard, with Brian James of the Damned. Elton Motello was actually pretty short lived, they released two albums, the other being “Victim of Time” and both times, the band consisted of different line-ups. “When All the Boys are English” follows next, and we get some saxophone on this song, and it almost had that ‘Careless Whisper‘ vibe to it – for a split second. The vocals come in, and we continue with that almost Oingo Boingo sound again, I do like this sort of experimental punk new wave sound that this album has, it’s actually pretty interesting. An interesting fact, Elton Motello’s “Jet Boy, Jet Girl” later had the backing track used on Plastic Bertrand’s “Ça Plane Pour Moi” – “Queen” comes next, and we get that almost post-punk sounding bass and drums with that guitar ripping in the back, it’s got that dark sound that you’d get in some of the true post-punk music, and the vocals come in and once more we’re back at that Talking Head’s style vocals. “Pay the Radio” follows next, and we keep up with the same vocal sound, and that upbeat pop punk sound, I’m not quite sure if this could be classified as post-punk, because it definitely has the sound. I am still definitely enjoying this album. The album closes out with “Panic in the Classroom” and we have that combination of Oingo Boingo and Talking Heads with this song, and there is a guitar solo in it.
All in all, a pretty solid album.
Catalog Number:
LAT 1084
Credits:
Guitar & Backing Vocals – Mike Butcher
Drums, Percussion & Backing Vocals – Walter Meter
Keyboards & Backing Vocals – Andrew Goldberg
Bass Guitar & Guitar – J.P. Martins
Vocals – Elton
Sax – Pietro
Backing Vocals – Paul Kidsley, Yvonne and Hilde
Keyboards – Cooky
Produced by Elton Motello and Mike for R.K.M.
Arranged by Elton and the Band
Recorded and Mixed at Morgan & R.K.M. Studios by Alan Ward
Assisted by Erwin, Cooky & Philip
Cover Concept by Elton, Mark Sevrin & Michel Sprimont
Masterd at Sterling Sound, NYC by Greg Calbi
Released:
1980
Find it on Discogs
