And so, like Boyz II Men, we have reached the end of the Cutouts Gone Wild! road. This series started out innocently, with a few ridiculous paragraphs about St. Paul’s Down to the Wire album, and spun quickly out of control; now, all these years later, I’m not really sure how things got this far. Or how many hours I’ve spent listening to and writing about records nobody remembers.

Anyway, thanks to our sparkly ‘n’ shiny digital revolution, fewer and fewer albums are staying out of print these days, so the time has come to stop scraping the bottom of the commercial barrel and yield this space to a better, brighter series — one that I’m certain will quickly make all of you forget about silly old Cutouts Gone Wild!

But first, one final order of business: The collected output of late ’80s Swedish pop band/apparent Bob Fosse fetishists All That Jazz.

Never heard of them? Me neither. Or I hadn’t, anyway, before a reader named Paul Cox wrote in to request a CGW! entry devoted to the band. I normally don’t bother with requests, for the simple reason that keeping up with them can overwhelm a series, but Paul’s e-mail intrigued me — who were these guys?

Naturally, I turned to the Internet, only to discover that A) “all that jazz” isn’t the most helpful of search phrases, and B) there appears to be only one web page containing any information at all about the band. I sent an e-mail, crossed my fingers, and waited.

This is all a long, roundabout way of saying that everything I know about All That Jazz I learned from Raynfall Creations. Like the band’s bio, for instance:

After playing in various punk bands, Peter, Patrik and Per formed All That Jazz in the autumn of 1981. Strong influences at that time were British post punk bands such as Joy Division, The Cure, Bauhaus and so on. In January 1983 All That Jazz released 12″ single The Banner of Love, 1000 copies on Wire Records. On the b side was the Beatles Norwegian Wood from Rubber Soul and our own My Blue Heaven, recorded on an 8 tracks in Niklas Hellbergs dads garage.

After being signed to virgin records America, All That Jazz released the self entitled album All That Jazz in 1987 and toured Japan, Britain, Sweden, Norway, Holland, Denmark and Finland. the us tour was cancelled because one member was denied a visa for the US. Producers of the album were Langer/Winstanley who also produced Madness, Dexys Midnight Runners, Elvis Costello, Teardrop Explodes among others. Shortly after, a band called Johnny Hates Jazz was signed to Virgin Records and had two monster hits. Virgin told All That Jazz to change their name and ATJ told them to bugger off, which they did. In 1991 All That Jazz released a full length album called Colourblind in Scandinavia and Finland. Patrik and Marie had left before this and things were getting out of hand. tours for that album were cancelled and All That Jazz never played again as a band.

You’re intrigued now, aren’t you?

Fortunately for all of us, Raynfall Creations was kind enough to send me both of the band’s albums, and since I’m pretty sure this is some of the most obscure stuff we’ve covered, I’m offering them up here in their entirety. (For a week, of course.) I don’t have any album artwork, but hey, that’s part of the whole underground charm, or something. Enjoy — and thanks for reading all these weeks!

All That Jazz
All the Way
America
Cruel Summer
Dolphins
Gazebo Song
Even the Trees
Open Rain
Run! Hide!
Sunday
The Holy Sea
Me and Lillieth

Colourblind
Ashes
Blue Afternoon
Wet
This Is Your Day
Caravan
Dark Globe
The Midnight Sun
The Angels Fall
Fear
Party

Jimmy Harnen – Can’t Fight the Midnight (1989)
purchase this album (Amazon)

That’s right, cutout lovers! It’s Jimmy Harnen!

Why do you all have that look on your faces? What, you don’t remember Jimmy Harnen, lead singer of the late ’80s Wilkes-Barre sensation Synch?

Okay, fair enough. But here’s the thing, you guys: You totally do remember Jimmy. If you’ve shopped for frozen foods or had your teeth cleaned at any point in the last 19 years, you’ve heard his big fat adult contemporary hit, “Where Are You Now.” You probably thought it was Air Supply or Deon Estus singing it, but no. Jimmy Harnen had you fooled.

He had a lot of people fooled, actually — unfortunately, most of them were the ones buying his album, Can’t Fight the Midnight, based on the simpering stylings of his hit single. You wouldn’t think it, listening to “Where Are You Now” — I didn’t believe it until I heard it for myself — but Harnen was no AC crooner. No, he was a good old-fashioned mullet rocker.

The reason for the discrepancy, as was the case strangely often in the ’80s, was that Harnen had recorded “Where Are You Now” years previous, as the drummer for Synch, a Pennsylvania band that pulled a Hooters and turned local success into a contract with Columbia. Harnen wasn’t Synch’s singer — in fact, the single was the only track he took the lead on — but Columbia execs knew an MOR hit when they heard one.

Except it wasn’t a hit — not at first, anyway. Synch lost its record deal and broke up; following the split, according to Harnen’s Wikipedia entry, “Jimmy finally got his hair cut.”

Fast forward to 1989, when, a la Benny Mardones and Sheriff, our boy Jimmy finds himself with a belated hit on his hands. The folks at Columbia promptly sent him back into the studio to record a new album, surrounding him with ringers like Randy Jackson, Steve Lukather, and (again, quoting from Wikipedia) “one of Harnen’s idols, REO Speedwagon’s Kevin Cronin.”

The result was Can’t Fight the Midnight, an album I totally slept on when it was released, but I can say now, with complete confidence, that I would have played the shit out of if I’d owned it in 1989. It’s got the intelligence of an amoeba, but it’s also chock full of that nougaty ’80s fake heartland rock goodness that made the last few years of the decade so much fun, and I don’t know what else you can ask for. The Cronin duet, “I Don’t Mind,” is particularly wonderful, and by “wonderful” I mean “borderline offensive in the way it tries to pander to truck-driving Natty Light drinkers who would probably break Kevin Cronin in half if they bumped into him in a bar.”

Did it sell worth a damn? Of course not — this is Cutouts Gone Wild! we’re talking about here. But for once, we aren’t dealing with an album that flopped because of terrible songs, or unfashionable music, or dunderheaded record execs. It just…flopped. Harnen had the look and the sound, but nobody cared. It was the musical equivalent of a 11-foot-tall basketball player whiffing on a dunk — utterly fascinating for all the wrong reasons.

Harnen knew when he was licked, and quit the biz, heading into A&R, where he’s apparently made quite a name for himself — from what I’ve read, he’s currently a senior VP at Capitol. Way to ward off the “Where Are You Now” jokes, Jimmy! Sure, Capitol sucks, but what label doesn’t these days?

And with that, we’ve said much more than anybody ever needed to say about Jimmy Harnen, Synch, and Can’t Fight the Midnight, so I’m just going to leave you with every track from the album, which was fetching ungodly sums on Amazon last time I checked. You do not need to pay more than $20 for this. (Special thanks to our pal Kurt for the files!)

Hello
When Midnight Comes
If She Cries
All Those Tears
Little Nikki
I Don’t Mind
No Reason in the World
Southern Lady
For All the Wrong Reasons
Boy in Love
Where Are You Now?

Rick Astley – Hold Me in Your Arms (1988)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Well, do you remember Rick Astley?
He had a big, fat hit — it was ghastly
He said “I’m never gonna give you up or let you down”
Well, I’m here to tell you that Dick’s a clown — Nick Lowe, “All Men Are Liars”

My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me? — Jesus H. Christ, Matthew 27:46

And so, at last, Cutouts Gone Wild! has come to this. Those of you who have been wondering why this series is nearing its conclusion need only look at Rick Astley’s stupid head on the cover of his stupid second album for your answer — we’re reaching the absolute fucking dregs here, people. And you know what the worst part is? At some point between when I put Hold Me in Your Arms in the CGW! on-deck circle and today, those dicks at Sony BMG went and put this album back in digital print. The physical CD is still only available used, but if you want to download mp3s of this entire wretched album, it’ll only cost you $9.90 at the Amazon mp3 store. But guess what? I don’t care. I listened to this shit in preparation for this column, but I’ll be damned if I had to go through that for nothing. You fuckers are getting a Rick Astley column today, and that’s final.

Speaking of fuckers, hey look, it’s Richard Astley. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m unusually grumpy today, but of all the crap I’ve listened to during the four years this series has been going on, I think I might hate Hold Me in Your Arms most of all. Again, I’m not entirely certain why this should be; after all, it isn’t like Astley can’t sing, or anything about his music was particularly offensive. Objectively speaking, we’ve certainly covered worse here. And yet listening to this record makes me want to hit things — preferably things shaped like Rick Astley.

You want specifics. I can tell. You aren’t going to get them here. I’ve listened to this album twice already today, and that’s enough. Everything here sounds like the same horrible song, and listening to it makes me feel like it’s the summer after eighth grade and I’m trapped inside Wet Seal in the worst mall in Hell.

Okay, okay — here’s one specific thing I hate about this album: the fact that someone thought it would be a good idea to do a cover of “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg” (download) and Richard Astley went along with it. I’m aware that Astley wasn’t making his own creative decisions at this point, but still, he had enough free will to haul off and punch Stock, Aitken, and/or Waterman in the nuts for daring to suggest that a drum machine should come anywhere near this song. Every time I hear him sing “I know you wanna leave me,” a little piece of me dies. Naturally, I have included a download link here, so you can share the experience.

As for the rest of it? It’s bland. Very, very bland. Vanilla ice cream with ice cube topping bland. Aside from the hit, “She Wants to Dance With Me” (download), I can’t tell any of these songs apart. What, you want proof? Fine, you masochist — take “Dial My Number” (download). As for me, I’m never listening to any of these songs again — but I will meet you back here next week, for the penultimate edition of Cutouts Gone Wild!, as we look at the man responsible for one of the most simpering ballads of the late ’80s. See you then!

The Grays – Ro Sham Bo (1994)
purchase this album (Amazon)

You’ve known this was coming since last week, when I promised an album from the great lost power-pop group of the ’90s. (Well, most of you did, anyway. I’m not sure what the person who guessed “Damn Yankees” was thinking.)

If you’ve never heard of the Grays, well, you’re in pretty much the same boat as everyone else; despite a stellar pedigree, a generous helping of Epic-assisted buzz, and no shortage of fawning from critics and pop nerds all over the planet, Ro Sham Bo was a commercial nonstarter.

There were good reasons for this. First, and probably most importantly, the guys who made up the Grays — Jason Falkner, Jon Brion, Buddy Judge, and Dan McCarroll — were, and had always been, out of step with commercial trends. Falkner was a member of the Three O’Clock and Jellyfish, and Brion had done time with ‘Til Tuesday (not to mention session work for — surprise! — Jellyfish), which should tell you everything you need to know about their luck as recording artists.

There was also the problem of being in a band in the first place — specifically, that all four members professed to hate it. Falkner, for one, had vowed never to join another band after leaving Jellyfish. Still, the quartet went into Ro Sham Bo with the best of intentions, seeking to avoid any ego-dug pitfalls by dividing songwriting and performing duties more or less evenly. Epic, meanwhile, was doubtless hoping that the sales sum of the band would be more than its parts.

Snake eyes on both rolls, obviously.

Critics, of course, lined up in droves, and Jellyfish fans still grieving over that band’s untimely demise (all two dozen of them) were in the tank for the Grays before they’d heard a single note. I think MTV might have even given an airing or two to the video for “Very Best Years” (embedding disabled — say it with me now: Fuck you, Sony/BMG). All for naught. Like their album, the Grays were a blip on the radar, and all four members were quickly on to other projects.

I’ve always been sort of baffled that Ro Sham Bo has remained out of print; not only do Brion, Falkner, and (to a lesser extent) Judge have name value in pop circles, but damn near everything is in print these days — matter of fact, the first Damn Yankees record is getting the reissue treatment in a couple of weeks. I can only guess that legal issues (or disinterest on the part of the various band members) has kept the album in limbo. And anyway, it isn’t as though having an album go out of print is unusual for any of these guys. Most of Falkner’s stuff has faded in and out of availability, Brion’s solo record went through years of label bullshit before he finally put it out himself, and Judge’s lone album — the intriguingly titled Profiles in Clownhenge, which I learned of this morning and now must hear — is rare enough to command in the neighborhood of $20 for a used copy.

(McCarroll, meanwhile, went against stereotype — the drummer became a record executive, doing A&R and publishing work.)

So what about Ro Sham Bo, anyway? For me personally — and I know this will be pop heresy for many of you — it’s … okay. I’ve owned and sold this album at least twice, and although I definitely appreciate the songs more now than I did when the album came out, all things considered, I’d rather be listening to Spilt Milk. (Not really a fair comparison, I know — but who said pop was fair?)

Don’t take my word for it, though — since the album is still fetching $10+ used, I figured I’d just put the whole thing up here for you to download and enjoy. Drink in that sweet mid-’90s pop, folks — and meet me back here next week for a look at the terribly depressing state of soul music in 1988!

The Grays – Very Best Years
The Grays – Everybody’s World
The Grays – Same Thing
The Grays – Friend Of Mine
The Grays – Is It Now Yet
The Grays – Oh Well Maybe
The Grays – Nothing Between Us
The Grays – Both Belong
The Grays – Nothing
The Grays – Not Long For This World
The Grays – Spooky
The Grays – All You Wanted
The Grays – No One Can Hurt Me

Nu Shooz – Told U So (1988)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Yes, yes, I know. Some of you were hoping for Boy Meets Girl — but as far as I can tell, all of their albums are still in print, whereas Nu Shooz’s Told U So had the good sense to fade into cutout bins many years ago. We will now repay this courtesy by making fun of the band and its music.

Actually, in all fairness, I feel like I can’t start this entry without pointing out that Nu Shooz were nowhere near as awful as they should have been. A Caucasian husband-and-wife duo — from Oregon, no less — doing a sort of suburban pop/freestyle hybrid? And with the worst band name of the entire decade, to boot? It should have been a Shaggs-esque train wreck, but it wasn’t. They sound unbelievably dated now, but Nu Shooz’s hits were (and remain) undeniably catchy. Go on and sing along — you know you want to:

Hey, is that Timbuk 3’s dog in there?

For a minute, Valerie Day and John Smith were bona fide pop stars — they were even nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 1987. (Other nominees: Glass Tiger, Simply Red, Bruce Hornsby & the Range, and, yes, Timbuk 3.) Their sound wasn’t just synthesizer-dominated, it was pretty much all synths, which put Nu Shooz right at the cutting edge of pop in 1986. Of course, what was trendy in ‘86 sounded played out in ‘88 — which is a big part of why Told U So tanked. Before we get into that, though, let’s watch the video for “Point of No Return,” just for fun:

The other reason for the album’s lack of success, as you may have already guessed, is that Day and Smith forgot to write any good songs for it. Where “I Can’t Wait” and “Point of No Return” beat you over the head with hooks, Told U So just kind of wafts along on a MIDI-scented breeze. Leadoff single “Should I Say Yes?” had enough oomph to almost reach the Top 40 — look for it in a future installment of Bottom Feeders — but aside from the dance hit “Are You Lookin’ for Somebody Nu” (download), Nu Shooz’s days on the charts were done. Have a listen to “Wonder” (download) and “Montecarlo Nite” (download) and ask yourself why. (Or just fall asleep. That’s what I did.)

Atlantic, believe it or not, responded to Told U So’s #93 peak by picking up its option for a third album, which Day and Smith worked on for an unbelievable four years before finishing. Titled Eat & Run, it was presented to the label in 1992, at which point everyone in the Atlantic boardroom presumably went pale with shock upon learning that Nu Shooz was still on the roster. This oversight was quickly corrected, Eat & Run was never released, and Nu Shooz soon disbanded to, in the words of their official bio, “focus on other projects.”

And you know what happened next, don’t you? Yes, yes, yes — the inevitable 21st-century comeback, complete with an unplugged version of “I Can’t Wait”! No, I’m not kidding! No, I’m not fucking listening to it! You can’t make me! The band’s reunion has also grown to encompass something called the Nu Shooz Orchestra, which allegedly “exudes an eclectic ‘James Bond meets James Brown’ mix of soul, jazz, ambient, exotica, world music and film noir.”

Don’t ask me, folks. I don’t understand it either. Listen for yourselves, if you dare.

And that’s it for this week’s installment of Cutouts Gone Wild! — join me next Thursday, as we enter the final month of this series with a look at the great lost power pop supergroup of the ’90s. See you then!

Judson Spence – Judson Spence (1988)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Ladies and gentlemen, meet Robbie Nevil’s undescended testicle.

Never heard of Judson Spence? Congratulations — you’ve been spared (until now) the horror of listening to the album I’m convinced was responsible for inspiring Joey Lawrence and Jeremy Jordan to pursue their own recording careers. Judson Spence is a bad, bad man.

Which is ironic, because he spends the bulk of his debut trying to convince you that he’s got nothing but good, clean fun on his mind. Our esteemed David Medsker summed up an earlier Cutouts Gone Wild! by saying “So inoffensive, so safe. ‘Come on, guys, let’s just dance!’” This describes Judson Spence perfectly. Let’s take a look at the opening lines of the second track, “If You Don’t Like It” (download):

I don’t need no fancy dealer
Telling me just how good it feels
I don’t want no false seduction
And trade my soul to get my thrills

I don’t have to drink when I’m dancing
I like to control my moves
I don’t need no headache in the morning
I just want a solid groove

Judson Spence: The only pop star of the ’80s to make Jermaine Stewart look like Sly Stone.

If you remember Spence at all, it’s probably because of his adorable little hitlet, a single called “Yeah, Yeah, Yeah” (download), notable for containing the immortal chorus “Uh oh wuh uh oh / Ooh ooh ooh / If you feel the way I do, say yeah, yeah, yeah.” But did you know he also wrote a song called “Hot & Sweaty” (download), which — you guessed it — makes a case against getting hot or sweaty?

Ain’t no need to get hot & sweaty
You know that I need ya
You know that I want ya
Ain’t no need to get hot & sweaty
For me to show you my good love

And no, it isn’t the humidity that Judson has a problem with. To underscore his point, in “Take Your Time” (download) he tells his girlfriend that he wants her to…well, I’m sure the title gives it away, doesn’t it?

Morality in pop music, in and of itself, isn’t something that can break an album; matter of fact, it’s really pretty admirable. But crappy lyrics are crappy whether they’re focused on getting laid or actively not getting laid — and these are crappy lyrics. And the music? Every bit as crappy. What isn’t crappy, sadly, is the behind-the-scenes talent assembled for this project by the best-named producer of the ’80s, David Tickle. Here, have a look:

Rick Marotta and Jeff Porcaro: drums
Alex Acuna: percussion
Jerry Hey: trumpet
Mick Jones and Dann Huff: guitar

And as a sad-faced cherry on top, let’s add Billy Preston on the Hammond B-3. I almost cried when I saw his name in the booklet.

And that’s all there is to say about Judson Spence and Judson Spence, really, except for the story of how, when my daughter asked me what I was listening to, I said “I’m listening to him,” and showed her this picture:

Her response? “Daddy, that he is a she.”

That’s all, folks. Meet me back here next week for some vintage late ’80s husband/wife synth-pop!

Gardner Cole – Δ’s (1988)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Do you have irrationally fond memories of the year 1988?

Do you often find yourself sitting around where all the “good times” of the late ’80s went, or leafing through your 1987-88 and 1988-89 yearbooks, or boring your friends to tears with constant stories that begin with “do you remember…”?

Do you smile wistfully when remembering the election of George H.W. Bush?

I have just the album for you.

Imagine, if you will, that a group of scientists, sitting in a lab on December 31, 1988, were somehow able to bottle the essence of the preceding 364 days and press it onto a CD. Do you want to know what it would sound like? I hear you screaming “no,” but I’m going to tell you anyway: It would sound like Gardner Cole’s debut album, Δ’s.

How about that album title, folks? Is that the most late ’80s thing you’ve ever laid eyes on, or what? Also, isn’t Gardner Cole kind of a tool for naming his debut after a shape? Don’t you hate him already? Well, wait until you watch this:

There you have it — “Live It Up,” Gardner Cole’s claim to fame as a solo artist, a song that, as far as I can tell, rose no higher than #91 on the Billboard Hot 100. This would seem to make Cole something of a footnote to a footnote in pop history, but oh dear God, would you look at the songwriting collaborators he lists on his MySpace page:

Peter Murphy, Nile Rodgers, Adam Ant, Philip Bailey, Bobby Caldwell, Jay Graydon, Patrick Leonard, Siedah Garrett, Oliver Leiber, The Jacksons, Madonna, Stephen Bray, Danny Sembello, Nathan East, James Newton-Howard, Kenny Nolan, Andre Cymone, Mic Murphy, Michael Omartian, Brian Wilson, Peter Allen, Franne Golde, David Gamson, Nathan East, Al Jarreau, Amy Grant, Michael McDonald, Syreeta Wright, Peter Murphy, Robbie Nevil

To quote Christopher Walken: Wowie wow wow.

Okay, so we can’t make fun of Gardner Cole’s career. But we can totally make fun of this album, which I’m just going to pretend was titled Douche. Not because it’s awful, but because it might be the most dated collection of recordings I’ve ever heard in my life. Aside from a compilation of Stephen Foster songs performed on the harpsichord by Civil War vets in blackface, I’m not sure it would be possible to even conceive of something more dated.

Which is to say, I love it — and I didn’t even like 1988, otherwise known as The Year My Skanky Ex-Girlfriend Showed Up at the Eighth Grade Graduation Dance with That Cocksucker Mike Legg. No, for me there’s just something incredibly fascinating about the sounds people made in recording studios during the mid-to-late ’80s, and Gardner Cole’s Douche is chock full of those sounds, many of which have been hunted to extinction — which draws an intriguing parallel between, say, the call of the dodo and the noises you hear in songs like “In a Big Way” (download) and “Thought I Had Her” (download).

Holy shit, does Gardner Cole prove Darwin was right? Or did I just blow your mind?

Julian Lennon – The Secret Value of Daydreaming (1986)
purchase this album (Amazon)

“The son of John Lennon and his first wife Cynthia, Julian Lennon parlayed a remarkable vocal similarity to his father into a moderately successful singing career during the 1980s.”

So begins Julian Lennon’s All Music Guide bio. It isn’t the most flattering of introductory sentences, but it’s fairly accurate, anyway. While making perfectly clear that I have absolutely nothing against Julian — and have enjoyed his music from time to time — it’s hard not to look at his career as a poignant lesson for anyone dumb enough to think about following in a well-known parent’s footsteps.

Julian’s dad was more well-known than most, of course; he was one half of the most beloved songwriting team in the history of rock & roll, murdered in cold blood during the prime of his life. Given all that — not to mention the fact that John hadn’t even been dead five years when Julian’s first record came out — there was literally no way Julian could win. He could have been twice the songwriter his dad was and it wouldn’t have mattered.

Of course, Julian Lennon is not twice the songwriter his dad was; on a good day, he might fill 60 percent of that glass, and most of the time, he didn’t get anywhere near that level. But having said all that, this album’s overall crappiness is not entirely Julian’s fault.

It is, as Angela Lansbury might say, a tale as old as time: An artist gets his entire life to work on his first album, and six weeks to finish his second one. This is pretty much exactly what happened to Julian Lennon with The Secret Value of Daydreaming (or, as I like to call it, The Diminished Value of Cutouts), with an extra twist — Lennon apparently didn’t even labor long over his first album, and supposedly only had a pile of half-finished demos when he was signed by Atlantic prior to releasing 1984’s Valotte. He wasn’t ready, in other words, but Atlantic knew there was a Lennon-shaped vacuum in the marketplace, so they rushed their golden goose to market.

It worked for awhile — even if there was still plenty of griping about Julian’s voice sounding too much like his dad’s, whatever that means. Valotte was a hit, and although Julian’s songs were clearly nowhere near as profound as his dad’s best work, most people seemed willing to give him a mulligan. And things actually started off promisingly enough for The Secret Value of Daydreaming, too. Remember “Stick Around”?

(If you were a child of the ’80s, you have to watch the video, even if you think Julian Lennon sucks the big one — where else are you going to see Joe Piscopo, Michael J. Fox, a young Jami Gertz, and hear the words “brought to you by new Hostess Pudding Pies”?)

“Stick Around” was a slam dunk hit, an enjoyably fluffy laker cake of synths, ’80s power chords, and…well, synths, actually. But past that track, the album’s wafer thin, which probably has something to do with the way it was slapped together. As Julian himself is quoted at the Hey Jules fansite:

“Well, with Valotte, I had an idea what I was going to record, you know, because I’d had a lot of chance…a lot of time to work on the material. But, with this one, I didn’t have so much time, you know. After the tour I went to Barbados for a month and shipped all my gear down because it was going to be a working holiday, but none of the gear arrived until the last week.”

All things considered, Lennon’s probably lucky Daydreaming ended up selling half a million copies — and that some of his fans continued to stick around (ha! ha! ha!) after hearing limp tracks like “You Get What You Want” (download) and “You Don’t Have to Tell Me” (download).

They’ve continued to stick around, actually — long after Atlantic (or Virgin, depending on your preferred side of the Atlantic) stupidly pruned Lennon from its roster in the early ’90s. After entering free agency, he took most of the decade off before returning toward the end of the century with Photograph Smile. The positive reviews that greeted it (not to mention the then-obligatory episode of VH1’s Behind the Music) went a long way toward erasing the last few whiffs of this album’s memory, a process Julian will presumably continue when he finishes his next release, supposedly some time this year.

Big Noise – Bang! (1989)
purchase this album (Amazon)

If you’re a music fan with the good fortune to have been born before the late ’80s, chances are you remember the thrill of spending a leisurely afternoon (or many afternoons) wandering the aisles of your favorite record store, thumbing through stacks of LPs/cassettes/CDs, just sort of…looking without hoping to find anything in particular. You can still do this today, of course, but only if you’re lucky enough to actually have a record store in your neighborhood — and on nothing like the scale of the “good old days.”

The reasons for this are too numerous to delve into in a silly little Cutouts Gone Wild! post, but for the sake of our time together today, let’s chalk it up to two things — the rise of big box retailers whose treatment of new music as a loss-leader product choked the life out of indie retailers, and the steep 21st century decline in major-label revenues. There’s still plenty of music out there — more than ever, in fact — but you’ve got to go online to find it, and as wonderful as it is to sample new albums before you buy them, nothing quite compares to that aisle-wandering experience. Be sad you missed it, kids — we might not be getting it back.

The point of all this rambling? Once upon a time, the major labels released a lot of music. I mean, really — lots. So much music, in fact, that it was a mathematical certainty that a not-inconsiderable percentage of this music would be utterly ridiculous. Case in point: Big Noise and their 1989 debut, Bang!

Don’t get excited. I don’t mean “ridiculous” as in “odd” or “funny” or “in any way interesting” — I mean it strictly in a “this never needed to come out” way. Actually, Big Noise was ridiculous on a few levels, including the band’s silly name and the fact that it consisted of seven — count ‘em! — members:

Anthony Fenelle — vocals
Huw Lucas — guitars
Paul Johnson — keyboards
Gary Thompson — bass
Tony Lahiffe — drums
Linton Levy — saxophone
Tony Jones — percussion

What’s so crazy about a seven-piece band? Nothing, really, except when the music it makes sounds like “Let Me Be” (download), “Victim of Love” (download), and “Turn the Lights Down Low” (download). This is garden-variety ’80s pop music, meaning the only people who needed to be (and possibly were) involved in its creation were the singer, keyboard player, and maybe the guitarist.

Big Noise had a song or two penetrate the Hot 100, but just barely; their music made such a small impact, in fact, that there’s virtually no trace of them on the Web. The AMG lists Bang! (and what appears to be a 2003 reunion album titled Good Morning Baby), but no artwork or review. They’re one of the only bands on Earth not to rate a slavishly devoted fansite. Not even a Wikipedia entry preserves their memory. The only thing my (ten minutes of) research turned up was Fenelle’s stint as the singer in an early ’90s version of Ultravox.

From a certain point of view, I guess you could say we’re making history with this post. Aren’t you excited?

Katrina & the Waves – Waves (1986)
purchase this album (Amazon)

Last week, we looked at poor Gregory Abbott’s second album, and the way R&B stardom can evaporate in the blink of an eye. This week’s subjects prove that pop listeners are no less fickle, and that you can go from walking on sunshine to collecting dust in a cutout bin in the length of time it takes to write and record a poorly conceived follow-up album. Like, say, this one.

For an ’80s one-hit wonder, Katrina & the Waves have a pretty interesting history. They took awhile getting around to adding “Katrina,” either to their lineup or their name, starting life as a mid-’70s Cambridge outfit known simply as the Waves. We probably wouldn’t talking about the band, in any of its incarnations, if not for its guitarist, the minor pop deity known as Kimberley Rew. He’s probably best known for his brief stint with the Soft Boys, but Rew’s C.V. is impressive no matter which way you look at it — he claims arguably the Bangles’ best song, “Going Down to Liverpool,” as just one of his many songwriting credits.

Anyway, Rew left the Waves to join the Soft Boys, but when they broke up, he got in touch with former Wave Alex Cooper, who had become the drummer for a band called Mama’s Cookin’ — a band fronted by one Katrina Leskanich. Rew ended up joining Mama’s Cookin’, which ended up changing its name to…hey, what do you know! The Waves!

In the new Waves’ early days, Rew acted as the primary songwriter and vocalist; Katrina mainly handled the band’s cover tunes during live performances. Gradually, however, Rew started writing songs for Katrina to sing, and before long, the Waves became Katrina & the Waves.

(If you think the band’s history is complicated now, just wait.)

Unable to generate label interest in Britain or America, the band shopped its self-financed album to a Canadian label, which is why Walking on Sunshine was initially released only in our Great White neighbor to the north, and why the band ended up putting out an album called Katrina & the Waves 2 before making its worldwide debut, Katrina & the Waves.

Totally confused yet? Don’t worry. You don’t need to keep up. This is where the band’s Rew-penned Big Hit Single comes in:

As ’80s one-off hits go, “Sunshine” has aged pretty well, which is why you still hear it all the damn time, and why younger acts (such as the terrifying Aly & AJ) have covered it. The song’s durability is a testament to Rew’s talent…and given that I’ve spent the bulk of this post coming back to what a terrific songwriter Kimberley Rew is, you can probably guess what I’m going to tell you about Waves.

Ten songs. Two of them written by Rew.

I’m not sure if the change in the band’s “artistic direction” was prompted by Leskanich contracting Lead Singer Disease, or if Rew had his own reasons for taking himself out of the equation; either way, Waves sucked, and continues to suck now. Katrina Leskanich was a fine vocalist, but one listen to duds like “Stop Trying to Prove (How Much of a Man You Is)” (download) should be enough to convince anyone outside her immediate family that she never needed to step away from the microphone. Bassist Vince de la Cruz fares no better with his contributions, which include the utterly dreadful “Sleep on My Pillow” (download).

Of the two Rew-penned cuts, leadoff track “Is That It?” (download) has the most charm, but — as our esteemed Will Harris pointed out to me — “When you’re coming off your first successful album, don’t start the follow-up with a song that gives critics a perfect opening to trash it.”

Even given all this, Waves still managed to peak at #25, probably driven by blind purchases from hopeful fans of the first (third) album. Capitol was not impressed, however, and booted the band from its roster, beginning a period of label exile that lasted until 1989, when SBK (motto: “Wilson Phillips and some other acts”) released the long-forgotten Break of Hearts.

Still, you’ve got to admire the group’s tenacity; they managed to release four more albums after Hearts tanked, ending with 1997’s Walk on Water, after which Leskanich apparently quit the band, eventually going on to form the quickly-sued-into-using-another-name Katrina and the New Wave.

So everything ended up the way it was supposed to, if you think about it. Rew is still collecting royalty checks for his great songs, Katrina is playing festivals in Sweden, and we’re all sitting here shaking our heads at another pop band that insisted on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. What will next week’s cutout teach us? Not a damn thing, probably, but meet me back here anyway!