Katrina & the Waves – Waves (1986)
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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.) (more…)