STUNTMAN

I was a little kid remembering how the 1970s became the 1980s, and it seems like a rather fast transition giving you little time to adjust. I think it had something to do with 1979 was the beginning of the 1980s, you can notice that in a lot of the music of the time, for example Gary Numan ("Cars" sounded like it could have easily fit well in 1981-82, when in fact the song, and the album it came from, The Pleasure Principle, dates from '79). Disco was the big reminder it was still the '70s. Tangerine Dream's Force Majeure certainly hinted at a more '80s sound, but the old sound was still there, especially many of those nice sequencer passages found on the title track, but for Froese's solo album from later that year, he let everyone know this was the '80s, even if it was still 1979. For one thing, the Mellotron was ditched, prototype digital synths from PPG were in, but still some of the old gear was still used (he couldn't possibly ditch all the old gear that fast). Due to this more '80s synthetic sound, it's little wonder many tend to look down on this album. Is it really that bad? Not really, and I'm sure fans of early '80s electronic music should have no trouble with this. The title track is a bit pop-oriented. He must have thought he needed a hit on the lines of Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygene IV". You can imagine hearing this as a theme song for a sci-fi TV series circa 1982. But then he moves on to less commercial territory with "It Would Be Like Samoa", a lot of it (unsurprisingly) has that Tangerine Dream-like feel to it, complete with sequencer (Edgar Froese style), with lots of polyphonic synths. "Detroit Snackbar Dreaming" is a great piece, I really dig those Moog synth leads. "A Dali-Esque Sleep Fuse" really surprised me, I hear this glassy synth tone that sounds exactly like a Yamaha DX7. Wow! I can't believe I'm hearing a DX-7 sound from a 1979 recording (no, I don't own the Eastside version, I avoid those like poison, I own the original UK Virgin LP pressing, complete with cool inner sleeve depicting all his gear of the time), of course coming from a PPG synth, since the DX7 obviously didn't hit the market until some four years later (1983). The last cut I honestly don't care for, it seems a bit on the fluffy New Age side of things, and I can see why, compared to earlier albums, this isn't as highly regarded, but I enjoy most of it still.