PETTY FOUR

Rip It Up, Issue 47, 1 June 1981, Page 16

PETTY FOUR

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Hard Promises Backstreet By. now we've; all heard the single and are a bit disappointed it's not an instant classic like Refugee'. But no matter what Petty gave ( us next we'd inevitably measure it against the near-perfection of Damn The Torpedoes. So relax. Hard Promises may not be a masterpiece, but it's still a damn good |a>bu^no»wi Petty has again employed the clean punch of producer Jimmy lovine. The difference is that whereas Torpedoes' unity was centred on powerful, driving chords, the new album sometimes employs a slightly subdued sound, particularly on the slower numoersr' ou Go' and Insider' are both ; haunting. (The latter includes an effective duet with Stevie [Nick’ijjHßnqßiiHMi . From the Byrds intro’on 'The Waiting' to the Dylanesque vocal slurs on 'Something Big', I Petty] is again wearing his influences on his sleeve ( Criminal Kind' revisits Dylan's Highway 61 via the Stones.) That this should be so is perhaps indicative of the album's descent from greatness. After all, Torpedoes transcended its sources into a classical purity that was all Petty's ownJßi|HßHflß|^HH Ah, forget the comparisons. Despite parts of Hard Promises being derivative, Petty ■ is: still proving that orthodox] mainstream rock'n'roll can be valid, vital and very satisfying in the 1980's. Peter Thomson The Who Face Dances Polydor Face Dances comes across very much as the album of the cover of the same name. With its overpowering collection of portraits of the band members on the cover, and

then again on an insert poster, the packaging of this LP reveals a preoccupation with style which carries over into the music and production of the Who's first post-Moon release. The band have replaced Moon with Kenney Jones and brought in Eagles' producer Bill Szymczyk. The result is a reduction in the number of the Who's idiosyncracies in favour of emphasising the most obvious of them. Just as on Who Are You, a bellowing Roger Daltry holds centre stage posturing his way through a rather hollow collection of songs by Townshend and Entwhistle. After the success of last year's solo Empty Class album, the standard of Townshend's material is a disappointment. As the Who come to depend more and more on his skills, and their own slide into self-parody, Townshend seems less willing to sacrifice

everything for the band. There is nothing .here to match 'Rough Boys'MHinHß| Perhaps , this record: will be what it takes to persuade Pete Townshend to take the obvious step and leave the Who behind. Frdncis'St%|M|jjjHm The Teardrop Explodes Kilimanjaro Mercury The word on this album, from both the critics and the record's effusive fame-lusting auteur Julian Cope, is that it really should have turned out a little better. However,, from this side: of the : seven seas we can only wonder at such talk. Without the advantage of actually seeing .the Teardrop Explodes] (tenth best new thing in the 1980 NME Readers' Poll) Kilimanjaro sounds a pretty strong LjjMHBBBMMM The songs gallop along powerfully, occasionally flav-

oured with a startling use of horns more akin to the piercing sounds the Byrds used to coax from Hugh Maskeia than to the sweaty punching of • yer actual soul rebels. Cope is an- overriding presence on top, and . while his narrow vocal range imposes melodic limitations on the material, he has still come up with at least a small handful of genuinely pursuable songs 'Treason', ],. a critical favourite in 1980 and an English chart entry in May 1981, 'When I Dream' (another single), the opener 'Ha Ha I'm Drowning', and 'Poppies In The Field', which - includes a couple of great . lines, and for lovers of Beatles B-sides everywhere, some nice backwards guitar. Kilimanjaro marks time in places, the band merely ticking over where embellishment is sorely required, but the sparks I are. assuredly there to be turned! into future flames^Hlan Something will have to be done, however, about this Scott Walker obsession ... Roy Colbert . ’ Q-Tips Chrysalis In the wake of Dexy's Midnight Runners come the latest entrants the British soul, revival ; stakes, Q-Tips. Dexys may claim to revive the spirit of sixties' black music but Q-Tips seem much more interested in resuscitating the form. They cover several wellremembered hits from that most well-remembered of decades (Dobie Gray's The In Crowd', Smokey Robinson and Ethej Miracles' 'The Tracks of My Tears', the Drifters'- 'Some Kind of Wonderful'), their arrangements cunningly borrow from Stax and Motown and singer, Paul Young, sounds like Frankie Miller soon , after he'd first heard Otis RlddiKgHpßH All good enough but the result, when filtered through a weak production job, is much more' like pop than soul, there's little depth or drama here. And that's a shame because the songs $ here are good enough and the playing and singing tough enough ]to suggest that with more risks taken and] different producer it all could j have been a different story. Alastair Dougal