BRIEFS

Rip It Up, Issue 47, 1 June 1981, Page 20

BRIEFS

Gen X Kiss Me Deadly (Chrysalis) Gen X have really failed to capitalise on their tidy, if innocuous, debut of three years back. Billy Idol always alienated the serious-minded with his photogenic punkness and the band, have been struggling to find anything approaching direction or impetus. They're now defunct, and on "Kiss Me Deadly", their finale, the above aimlessness is apparent, but on one or two songs, namely 'Dancing With Myself' and 'Revenge', they've wisely played within their neat, often dynamic capabilities. GK Jimi Hendrix Nine to the Universe (Polydor) Since Jimi Hendrix died, so many inadequate and/or unfinished recordings have been pumped on to the market it's hard to believe anything of genuine interest can remain. But this album of jam sessions from 1969 is one of the few posthumous recordings to do credit to Hendrix's memory. It shows Hendrix moving towards jazz, a fiery, rhythmic jazz bom of his R&B roots. Jamming can be (for the listener, at any rate) self-indulgent and boring. Not so here. The sheer vitality of the music can only fuel speculation as to the sounds Hendrix might have made had he lived. KW Vapors Magnets (Liberty) The British press was nearly as . unkind to - the Vapors' 'Spiders' single as it was to 'I Got You', and we all . know what happened to 'I Got You'. 'Spiders', gimmicky vocal and all, helps prop up the second Vapors' album along with the bouncy 'Jimmie Jones', a song of almost Undertones' proportions. But after these opening two, the band's idea of pop gets a bit piffly, and when the salvage attempt comes at the end of Side Two the title track it's too late. RC