The Smithereens - Meet The Smithereens! (2007)

A rote cover of the 1964 US album from The Beatles. I'm a fan of The Smithereens but find this CD completely unnecessary.

Press of the time:

• Slant (★★½): "utterly superfluous"
• New York Times: "balances fidelity to the original with a projection of the interpreter’s style"
• Pop Matters (7 out of 10): "a success in its own right, simply in that it’s a fun record and a welcome return from a once-great band"
• Rolling Stone (★★★): "inessential but fun"

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
2011 (2011)
Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)
Blow Up (1991)
11 (1989)
Green Thoughts (1988)
Especially For You (1986)

The Smithereens - Especially For You (1986)

So I received this text message earlier this week:

There ya have it. And while I didn't need that reminder, it did prompt me to pull some Smithereens CDs from the shelf.

You know from the first drum smack that you're in for a rockin' treat here. Leader Pat DiNizio was a gifted singer/songwriter who wrote power pop hooks a'plenty, influenced by all sorts of '60s groups, mainly British Invasion. The band is tight, arrangements first-rate, energy is high, and the vocal harmonies are on point. The music has aged well and certainly the band should have been bigger than they were. And yes, the Smithereens are badass.

Now this disc is going to take up residence in my truck's CD player for a few months. Again.

10 things you might not know about The Smithereens’ ‘Especially for You’ album

Press of the time:

• Billboard: "a wealth of Beatlesque pop hooks"
• Rolling Stone: "like a long-lost greatest-hits album"
• Stereo Review: "when you're faced with music as exquisite as the Smithereens make here, the only sane response is to shut up and enjoy it."
• Robert Christgau (B-)

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #51
• Billboard Pop CD: #27
• CashBox: #41
• Rolling Stone: #50

Tracks: My favorites are Strangers When We Meet, I Don't Want To Lose You, Time And Time Again, In A Lonely Place (with Suzanne Vega and a tasty vibraphone solo), Crazy Mixed-Up Kid, and Hand Of Glory. I know I'm supposed to like Blood And Roses because that's a fan favorite, but it just doesn't do much for me except for the guitar solo.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None, but after discovering the band through Green Thoughts in 1988, it took me much longer than it should have to explore the group's back catalog.

Previously revisited for the blog:
2011 (2011)
Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)
Blow Up (1991)
11 (1989)
Green Thoughts (1988)

The Smithereens - 11 (1989)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a cassette tape, later replaced by a CD.

When the CD Blow Up appeared on this blog two years ago, I wrote the following: "I wasn't looking to purchase this CD, but I saw it in a used clearance bin and I've got a music addiction I've got to feed so there ya go. I'd do the same if I ever saw a copy of 11." And I did.

Hooks a'plenty. From top-to-bottom, this is the band's best album as well as their most consistent. (My fave Smithereens tune remains House We Used To Live In from Green Thoughts, though.) To my way of thinking, the only description of the band's sound is Beatlesque power pop and there ain't nuthin' wrong with that.

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard Top 200: #41
• Billboard Pop CD: #17

Tracks: I tried to pick favorites. I tried to rank the tracks. I couldn't do it (but Yesterday Girl is catchy as hell, ain't it? 😉). I like all 10 tracks. And shouldn't they have 11 tracks on an album with that title? This album clocks in at 35 minutes so there was room for more. Turns out the title has more to do with the Rat Pack than track numbers:

Billboard, December 16, 1989, p. 29

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: I was in my first year of teaching when this album was issued and I played the heck out of it as I traveled in and among the suburbs of Dallas that year. I know this because I remembered all the words to songs I hadn't heard in almost 30 years.

For more information on the brief life of the CD longbox,
go visit The Legend of the Longbox.

This question may cross your mind: "Mark, you had a CD player in 1989, why on earth were you still buying cassettes?" And it's a fair question. Simply put, it was price. I was a first-year teacher trying to put my new wife through physical therapy school. Cassettes were running $6-8 cheaper than the newfangled CDs; more than that if the cassettes were on sale (the newfangled CDs were almost never on sale). Fast forward 28 years and I can buy the CD for $1.80 at a Half-Price Books.

Previously revisited for the blog:
2011 (2011)
Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)
Blow Up (1991)
Green Thoughts (1988)

The Smithereens - Blow Up (1991)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a cassette tape, later replaced by a CD.

This group grabbed my interest with Green Thoughts, held it with 11, and began losing me with Blow Up. And while this thing is decidedly hit-and-miss, there's some good Beatlesque power pop to be had here. Sadly, as a whole, it just doesn't measure up to the previous releases: it's good, not great. I wasn't looking to purchase this CD, but I saw it in a used clearance bin and I've got a music addiction I've got to feed so there ya go. I'd do the same if I ever saw a copy of 11.

Album cover trivia: the cover design is by movie poster/title sequence artist Saul Bass.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: #120

Tracks: The good stuff is Top Of The Pops, Too Much Passion, and Girl In Room 12. The mediocre stuff is Evening Dress, Now And Then, Over And Over Again, It's Alright, If You Want The Sun To Shine, and the appropriately titled Tell Me When Did Things Go So Wrong. You'll want to skip Get A Hold Of My Heart, Indigo Blues, and Anywhere You Are.

Exclusive CD longbox photo courtesy of Dirk Digglinator
of the Hambonian Archives.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: This album was released and originally purchased during the four years my wife were married before we had children (1989-93). By 1991, I was on my second "real" job, we had purchased our first house and first country club membership as I had taken up golf. However, none of that has anything to do with this album, so I'll just quit my rambling as I can't remember much associated with this CD other than listening to this cassette in my gray Nissan pickup. I purchased the follow-up album, A Date With The Smithereens, but quickly discarded it as I felt as if I had been stood up on that date [rimshot].

Previously revisited for the blog:
2011 (2011)
Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)
Green Thoughts (1988)

The Smithereens - 2011 (2011)

New nostalgia. In the summer of 2011, I looked forward to album releases from two eighties groups: The Cars' Move Like This and this album. Of the two, I prefer this one because it's a bit more consistent. Getting back together with producer Don Dixon, this is a definite return to form for the band: guitar-crunching, Marshall-amped, Beatleseque power pop songs with lots of hooks. With their immediately recognizable vintage sound, this could only be The Smithereens; I wish this CD had been released 20 years earlier. The band sounds as great as ever and have kept their British Invasion bar band sound that first caught my ear in 1988. And, like most Smithereens albums, it gets better with repeated listenings. It's not a five star album, but it's good enough for this forty-something guy who's not always looking for new tricks from old dogs. Sometimes the old tricks get the job done.

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: did not chart

Tracks:  13 tracks in 47 minutes. While there's not one track that reaches out and grabs you from the first listen, top tracks include Sorry, A World Of Our Own, Nobody Lives Forever, Turn It Around, and What Went Wrong. I usually skip Viennese Hangover because it's the only track where the band sounds like it is trying too hard.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: None

Previously revisited for the blog:
Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)
Green Thoughts (1988)

The Smithereens - Blown To Smithereens: Best Of The Smithereens (1995)

I woke up this morning with this group's song A Girl Like You stuck in my head, so I thought listening to this CD might help get it out. Not that it is a bad song, it's just that I'd rather not have earworms. I originally thought this group sounded like R.E.M. (with a better singer) based on the first Smithereens song I heard, House We Used To Live In. At that time, I missed The Beatles influence on the band completely - now I can't get away from it. This CD starts off with Beauty & Sadness which sounds a lot like a cross between The Beatles' Tomorrow Never Knows and She Said She Said. In other words, 1966 Revolver-era stuff. (For a more obvious rip-off, er, I mean tribute, compare the harpsichord solos from The Smithereen's Blue Period to that of The Beatles' In My Life.)

I purchased three of the group's albums on cassette: Green Thoughts (1988), 11 (1989), and Blow Up (1991). 9 of this compilation's 16 tracks are taken from those albums. I purchased the band's 1994 CD, A Date With The Smithereens when it was released, but thought the band had lost a step and gave up on them until they released some new material last year. I keep meaning to give their Beatles tribute albums a listen. The group only had 2 Top 40 hits in their career, but consistently charted in the "US Mainstream Rock" category. This is one of those bands who cause fans and critics (myself included) to ask, "Why isn't this group more well-known?"

Peak on the US Billboard Top 200 chart: Did not chart

Tracks: Overall, a great CD as greatest hits compilations should be. Of course, I prefer the songs I already knew from the late '80s/early '90s. My favorites are still House We Used To Live In, A Girl Like You, Yesterday Girl, Too Much Passion, and Top Of The Pops. I'm not a fan of some of the band's contribution to the 1994 movie Timecop, a cover of The Outsiders' 1966 hit, Time Won't Let Me.

Song	Album	Year	Hot 100	Rock
Beauty & Sadness	Beauty & Sadness (EP)	1983	-	-
Strangers When We Meet	Especially For You	1986	-	-
Blood & Sadness	Especially For You	1986	-	14
In A Lonely Place	Especially For You	1986	-	-
Behind The Wall Of Sleep	Especially For You	1986	-	23
Only A Memory	Green Thoughts	1988	92	1
House We Used To Live In	Green Thoughts	1988	-	14
Drown In My Own Tears	Green Thoughts	1988	-	34
A Girl Like You	11	1989	38	2
Blue Period	11	1989	-	-
Blues Before & After	11	1989	94	7
Yesterday Girl	Blow Up	1991	-	20
Top Of The Pops	Blow Up	1991	-	19
Too Much Passion	Blow Up	1991	37	-
Miles From Nowhere	A Date With The Smithereens	1994	-	17
Time Won't Let Me	single-only	1994	-	-

Personal Memory Associated with this CD: The group's brand of rock is well-suited to the road, so I listened to the band often in my 1985 Oldsmobile Firenza, especially during the years 1988 and 1989. What a difference a year makes: in 1988, I was in a bad place; let's just say I was "in transition." By the end of 1989, I had a college degree, my first 'real' job, my first lease in my name, and had married my wife. The difference between those two consecutive years is night and day.

Speaking of my 1985 Oldsmobile Firenza, here's a photo of it being towed away by my brother-in-law in the spring of 1990. I've selected this photo specifically because that's how I remember that car: it was a piece of crap that was always leaving me stranded on the side of the road.

...and A Girl Like You is still stuck in my head.

Previously revisited for the blog:
Green Thoughts (1988)

The Smithereens - Green Thoughts (1988)

Note: this release was originally purchased as a cassette tape, later replaced by a CD.

I saw the video for House We Used To Live In on the MTV and was immediately a Smithereens fan. I thought they sounded like a more popish R.E.M. which was right in my wheelhouse at the time - power pop with lots of hooks. I remained a fan until I lost interest with 1994's A Date With The Smithereens.

Press of the time:

• Rolling Stone (★★★½): "prevails almost in spite of itself."
  
• Billboard: "hooky, guitar-driven pop"
• CashBox: "one of the most important forces in rock and roll music today"
• Stereo Review: "a wonderful record, to be sure"
• Robert Christgau (C+): "I know Pat DiNizio is Beatlesque, but is that why he writes cheerful-sounding love songs that turn out to be kind of mean when you pay attention?"

Album chart peaks:

• US Billboard 200: #60 (May 7, 1988)
• Billboard Pop CD: #26
• CashBox: #52
• Rolling Stone: #49

Tracks: Only A Memory, House We Used To Live In, The World We Know, Drown In My Own Tears, and Green Thoughts are classic Smithereens songs. In fact, they all sound very similar, but not formulaic. Certain songs, like Something New and If The Sun Doesn't Shine, are complete Beatles knockoffs, but if you're going to model your sound on another band, you could do much worse. The only track I'm tempted to skip is Spellbound.

Personal Memory Associated with this CD:  This takes me back to the summer of 1988. Not by best summer (I worked in a warehouse and lived in a house with no a/c), but I listened to lot of new music back then. My girlfriend at the time had the middle name of Elaine so she loved the song on this album with that title. So, naturally, that song reminds me of her.