The Tubes - Outside Inside (1983)

Note: this release was originally purchased as an LP, later replaced by this import CD from the UK.

The group's biggest-selling album, this release is more of the catchy, high gloss power pop found on their previous album, The Completion Backward Principle, with production from David Foster and playing help from the members of Toto. Now that I read the previous sentence, it seems like the putdowns the music critics used (see below), but not so - since I liked Completion Backward Principle, I like most of this one as well.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone (★★): "this Tubes fan is disappointed"
• Stereo Review: "characterless, hook-riddled, heavy-metal contrivances"
• Billboard: "the emphasis on the band's musicality, rather than its earlier penchant for outrageous satire"
• CashBox: "the band seemed to move beyond mere cult status and become embraced by the rock mainstream"
• Robert Christgau (C+): "these soulful California cats did their professional best to simulate a Journey album."
• Trouser Press: "the kind of empty wind their pals in Toto generate."

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #18
• Billboard Rock: #2
• CashBox: #18
• Rolling Stone: #16

Tracks: Three singles were released in the US, including the band's biggest hit, She's A Beauty (#10 pop, #1 rock), The Monkey Time (#68 pop, #16 rock), and the EWF knock-off Tip Of My Tongue (#52 pop). Coincidently(?), those three singles weren't primarily written by the band:

• She's A Beauty - Toto's Steve Lukather and producer David Foster
• The Monkey Time - Curtis Mayfield
• Tip Of My Tongue - Maurice White

Nevertheless, those three are the top tracks on the album, but I also have a strange affection for the wacky Wild Women Of Wongo. Of the remaining filler, I dig No Not Again, Out Of The Business, and Fantastic Delusion. 

The version of Monkey Time included on this CD is the original duet with Martha Davis; the US single contained a re-recorded version with Davis' vocal replaced by Michele Gray.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: Nothing immediately comes to mind. My time during the spring and summer months of 1983 were spent working the drive-thru window at Burger King, a time I recapped when I posted about The Completion Backward Principle. I also spent a week in Austin being brainwashed; you can read my memories of that experience over at My Favorite Decade. The brainwashing didn't take.

Around the time this album was released, I was finishing up my junior year of high school. My grades that semester? According to my personal archives (a.k.a. a shoebox of stuff my mother saved for me), here ya go:

• Band: 96
• Chemistry: 82
• Typing: 95
• English: 85
• Government: 92
• French I: 95

Previously revisited for the blog:
The Best of The Tubes 1981-1987 (1991)
The Completion Backward Principle (1981)