REHAB PROJECTS

Today, while the blogger nurtures a bunch of pulled back muscles, we turn our thoughts away from college football (momentarily) and back towards Topic B around this blog: music. Specifically, we’re looking at three currently-ignored 80s artists who may, someday, find themselves the beneficiaries/victims of the sort of critical re-examination which sort of brought The Monkees and Neil Diamond back into semi-hipness. I’m not saying that will happen for any of these three, but who would’ve ever thought The Monkees would someday be appreciated for their musical merits? So let’s take a handicapper’s look at . . .

BANANARAMA

On the plus side of the ledger, their low-key, unemotional singing meant they were doing irony before irony was cool. They also did a decent job of incorporating the 60s girl-group sound without sounding too retro. “Robert DeNiro’s Waiting” qualifies as the best sort of subversion, sneaking a Big Statement about date rape into a puffy bubblegum dance tune. (Extra credit to the group for actually writing that song themselves.) “Cruel Summer” has probably the best rock & roll marimba playing there ever will be. Furthermore, Siobhan Fahey actually managed to have some success (though not in the US) with Shakespear’s Sister after Bananarama hung it up. And then there’s the ever-present “cute young women in denim overalls” factor, which cannot be discounted.

The negative is pretty considerable, though. For a trio, they sang in unison a lot, and when they sang in unison, they weren’t always in unison, if you know what I mean. (I could make a trenchant comment here, but I have a reputation to consider . . .) Their post-1985 albums are so formulaic they’re almost unlistenable. And, while they were one of the biggest British acts of the mid-80s, their US career was pretty much a cipher.

Verdict: 80s fashions are bound to come back someday, since everything is inevitable, and when they do, Bananarama will get some consideration as video-age fashion fodder. But it’s doubtful that Bananarama will ever be regarded by most music snobs as much more than a slightly-forgettable precursor to the Spice Girls. That’s unfair; they were better than that, but that’s how it goes. Odds of a full critical rehabilitation: 30-1.

LITTLE RIVER BAND

First things first: I could easily go the rest of my life without hearing “Lonesome Loser” or “Cool Change” one more time. But LRB’s songwriting chops are underappreciated. No 70s pop band would’ve dared to write anything like “Reminiscing,” and even if those pseudo-Bee Gees harmonies haven’t aged well, the song and the sentiment have. “Lady” was a nice adaptation of a tortured lyric as well. There’s one LRB song in particular, though, that I don’t feel has ever gotten its due respect, and that’s “We Two” from 1982’s The Net. Glenn Shorrock, who sang all the group’s previous hits, had just left the band; new lead singer John Farnham absolutely crushed this song with a performance that still hits me like an icicle to the skull. Add in the brooding suspended minor-chord guitar riffs, and this song goes into the “why wasn’t this a bigger hit” Hall of Fame.

The downside of LRB was always their lyrical abilities. “We Two” was great musically, but lyrically, it wouldn’t pass muster in a freshman comp class: Carousels and wishing wells were the things we loved/To fly away in a big balloon was what we talked of and also We are fools/We make all these rules/We make it so hard to find love, to be free, to be fresh out of school suggest that the lyrics may have been written while waiting for lunch to be delivered.

Verdict: It will take some time, but I feel pretty confident that LRB’s basic solidity and undeniable talent will someday get somebody’s attention. If they can get past “Lonesome Loser,” that is. Odds of getting reappreciated: 3-1.

EDDIE MONEY

No, really, at one time he was a fairly important artist. His videos were considered important enough to merit MTV debuts. Eddie Money was never the greatest singer, but he didn’t claim to be. Instead he focused on creating honest, sincere pop music that had a slight rockin’ edge to it. If he came up today he’d be a country artist, so relentlessly Everyman is his music. Even now in his mid-fifties, he’s still working as hard as ever.

The complaint against Eddie Money has always been that his songs pretty much all sounded the same, and, unfortunately, they do. He wasn’t a gifted enough singer to pull off deep, introspective ballads, so he stuck to mid-tempo songs like “I Wanna Go Back,” “Endless Nights,” and “Take Me Home Tonight.” That’s a fine use of talent, but, well, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap also put out a bunch of decent soundalike songs in the late 60s, and nobody’s calling them great overlooked 60s artists now.

Verdict: There have been a lot of acclaimed singers whose vocal chops weren’t actually that good. At least Eddie Money always sounded honest and seemed to know his limitations. Someday people will tire of praising John Mellencamp and turn their attentions to Money. Just not any time soon, probably. Odds of a reputation rehab: 9-2.