Thursday, April 17th, 2008

Cutouts Gone Wild!: Gardner Cole, “Δ’s”

by Jeff Giles

cgwlogo.jpg

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?

Tags: , , ,

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 17th, 2008 at 7:30 am and is filed under Cutouts Gone Wild!, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • The greatest thing about objects as titles, is that you can absolutley call it "douche" and who's to actually say you are wrong? And I'm not going to disagree with that pronounciation either.

    I haven't listened to this album in ages, but I definitely remember thinking how very '80s it sounded. All three of these songs blow terribly and yet I'll now be singing "got to live it up..." for half the day. [shaking head]. Nice choice this week.
  • jack
    Unless there are two Peter Murphy guys in the music world, he listed him twice. That's a douche move in itself.
  • mojo
    At first blush, it seems like your beef is more with Mike Legg, and Gardner Cole just got caught in the crossfire.

    However, after listening to about 30 seconds of each song...(uh, cough, uh, uh--bleaaaaahhhhhh...vomited on my keyboard there, sorry, ok back to it)...This is music I spend half my life denying I lived through. It's getting harder and harder to convince my kids I existed during the Billy Preston and Isaac Hayes era...but was not around while Robbie Nevil and Gardner Cole roamed the earth. They're getting smarter by the day, and I ain't anymore.
  • As terrible luck would have it, Mr. Preston paid some bills in '88 by playing all over next week's entry...
  • mojo
    Hardest of the hardcore Preston fans say he jumped the shark when he first played with the Beatles and went way far from his roots of burning Memphis-style soul...I am not in that crowd. A man's gotta adapt to the changing pop landscape.

    Nonetheless I am scared to learn just which cutout upon which he surfaced...
  • ozarkmatt
    Ah, I see by the Amazon link that this was entitled "Triangle's." However, I could have sworn it was called "Delta's."

    That's how I am going to remember it. At least until I forget about it again, in say, 45 seconds.
  • Jon
    The title should be read as "Changes" . Being a science-geek compells me to point out that 'delta' is the scientific symbol for 'change'.

    As for the artist...never heard of him.

    Jon
  • James
    I checked out the YouTube video. Yes, it is quite apparent when this was recorded. I'm amused that the title is "Triangle's" with an apostrophe. Does this mean that Mr. Cole belongs to the triangle? Or maybe the songs do?

    If you dare, check out this video from the BulletBoys from 1991. It too sounds very much like you would expect a song from a band of their ilk released in 1991 to sound! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fb9LhdPv0MY
  • sundaydread
    What's amazing is that this assclown probably used to get laid on a regular basis with that look.
  • I looked quickly and I thought this one read "Garland Jeffreys" for some reason!
  • Wishful thinking!
  • This is the type of guy you just ever-so-slightly nudge off the road, into a ravine filled with man-eating guppies.

    What?
  • Oh, WOW. This is like the poor man's Grayson Hugh. Or the homeless man's Howard Jones. or the male Taylor Dayne. Utterly without merit.

    I have a good cutout for this...the self-titled album by Lulabox, sort of like a watered-down Curve. "Ride On" is an amazingly great single, and there are about four other songs on the album almost as good though not as infectious.
  • Mikee
    This moment is truly surreal. My sister worked at a radio station in the late 80's early 90's and gave me a box of cassettes and cds that didn't fit into the station's format. Gardner Cole's Triangles was in the box. I remember giving it a listen and thinking that I was probably the only person outside of the recording session to actually hear the album. This album is the equivalent of the picture that comes in a new picture frame. Funny Post!
  • "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."

    Ha!
  • Despite your naysaying, sir, I liked all three songs featured here. 1988 was a fairly sucky puberty-wracked year of my life, so I'm not nostalgic for this "sound" at all, but I'll be darned if Gardner Cole & Associates' lightweight pop hasn't lightened my mood.
blog comments powered by Disqus