A trip down Memory Lane with ‘American Heartbeat’
Flicking through the ‘ol vinyl the other day, on a quest for something to accompany a burst of old-skool tartrazinesque energy, i stumbled upon a happy childhood ghost: American Heartbeat … ‘a collection of the very best’. It’s packed full of eighties chest thumping classics like Toto’s ‘Africa’, Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling’ and, my personal fave: ‘Take It On The Run’ by Reo Speedwagon, the chorus of which offers the inspiring lyric ‘I don’t believe it, not for a miiiinute, your under the gun so you take it on the run’ … a lyric that proudly screams : hey, it’s the eighties … it’s not what you say but how tight your shorts are! It conjures up images of Chest Brockwell in Boogie Nights and Rusty’s nightclub dream sequence in National Lampoon’s European Vacation. I can just see the record exec dancing in the control booth: riding the Laffer curve, flush from Reaganomics, squash racket in one hand, a rolled-up fiddy in the other and two Heather Locklear types swinging from his knob.
This was an era where it seems there was a direct correlation between tax rates and guitar solos. The lower the taxes, the higher the solos. The singing also seemed to follow this pattern: listen to the chorus of ‘Africa’, any higher and only dogs could hear what the hell was going on. I’m also struck by how the invention of the Synthesiser, whilst adding a texture that defined the musical zeitgeist, seemed to lead to a plethora of crap bass lines. A prime example of this can be found on ‘Heat Of The Moment’ by Asia where a bass line is hardly discernible above the Donald Duckish chorus Synth. Indeed, one can begin to see how the valiant ‘slapper’ Mark King was allowed to ride unapposed into Music Town to rescue the four stringed damsel in distress.
The songs on here take me back to the visual landscapes of John Hughes and Joel Schumacher: a sweaty saxophoning Rob Lowe, a fingerless glove-wearing Judd Nelson … It reminds me of when American Football, with it’s stars such as The Fridge and Walter Payton, briefly threatened to take over the playgrounds of Britain, and when frozen Micro-Chips were all the rage.
It’s not all just a trip down memory lane however.What comes across most of all from American Heartbeat is the sense of good, clean, unabashed joy. It’s the perfect soundtrack for those moments when you want to forget Tibet and the credit crunch; when you don’t want to listen to whining self-conscious ‘proper’ stuff; when all you want to do is dance around in your pants with a wooden spoon for a microphone.
Best Bits: Take It On The Run - Reo Speedwagon; ‘Africa’ - Toto; ‘Don’t Fear The Reaper’ - Blue Oyster Cult.
M
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REO_Speedwagon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toto_(band)
