Howdy, gang! Have you missed reading Cutouts Gone Wild!? You have? Good, ’cause I’ve missed writing it — and even though I’m still of the belief that the rising tide of digital reissues has eliminated the need for a column about cutouts, there are still plenty of flops to talk about, so as of right this moment, I’m starting a new column devoted to that very subject — specifically, flops that followed hits, and enjoyed all the high expectations and large promotional budgets that every album hopes for…and still managed to brick it.

To kick things off, how about we take a look back at the second release from one of my all-time favorite bands, the Georgia Satellites?

To most people, the Satellites — or, as their mamas named ‘em, Dan Baird, Rick Richards, Rick Price, and Mauro Magellan — were just the stupid rednecks responsible for 1986’s left-field hit, “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” but trust me, y’all, they were so much more. Rising like a phoenix from the pile of ashes that was honest rock & roll in the mid ’80s, they took equal parts Stones, Faces, and NRBQ, added a fifth of SoCo and some ice, and downed the whole thing in a single gulp. And goddamn was it delicious. In ‘86, they were out-Stoning the Stones (admittedly not the hardest thing in the world, but still) and for a young twit like me, for whom the Faces didn’t yet exist and Rod Stewart’s career might as well have started with “Infatuation,” the Sats were basically the only game in town for good old-fashioned rock music.

And I mean really old-fashioned: Either by dint of their homely bar-band looks or by virtue of a belief in focusing strictly on the music, the Georgia Satellites gave no apparent thought to image. They must have known that rock bands only got by in the ’80s if they looked like Bret Michaels and packed a power ballad in each album, but they took Elektra’s money and churned out track after track of 4/4 boogie-woogie rock & roll, pausing between songs only long enough to crush the empties and stub out the butts.

They never had a prayer, in other words, and if there’s a morning that Dan Baird doesn’t wake up and thank his personal deity for sending him the constant stream of mailbox money that is “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” then I don’t want to know about it. But even having established the fact that the Satellites were a band out of time, I submit that they still could have — should have — carved out a niche for themselves at AOR stations; after all, those playlists still had room for non-power ballad fare from Aerosmith and Van Halen. The Sats’ second release, 1988’s Open All Night, should have been the second chapter in a long career, not a death knell. And yet. (more…)