The Attractions go `Mad’
Submitted by Tony Sclafani on Tue, 2006-03-21
By Tony Sclafani
Didja ever meet the kind of people who seem all normal on the surface, but when you get to know ’em you find out they have rooms filled with horror movie memorabilia or tons of books about serial killers?
“Mad About the Wrong Boy,” is like those kind of people. It's the sole LP The Attractions recorded without Elvis Costello, and sounds normal, but really isn't.
The pop-oriented album sound sweet and light upon first listen, with lots of speeded-up tempos, happy 1960s-styled melodies, and bubblegum-synth squawks. It’s even got a cute cover, featuring both an adorable little dog and a tasty-looking breakfast.
It’s in the lyrics that the weirdness crops up. Songs touch on themes like self-loathing (“Damage Me”), desperate housewives (“Highrise Housewife”), mindless conformity (“Lonesome Little Town” and “Straight Jacket”) and nuclear war (“Arms Race”). The album’s tales of British life often recall The Kinks’ “The Village Green Preservation Society,” but instead of Ray Davies’ wistfulness, you get The Attractions’ bitterness.
When the lyrics aren’t dark, they’re often inscrutable and open to interpretation. For example, does the LP’s “Single Girl” excoriate a self-centered career woman or the “virgin vigilantes” that court her? Or is it just a breezy song with some oddball phrases thrown in? Considering how strong the song’s hooks are, maybe it doesn’t matter what writers “Brian & Hart” meant.
About that songwriting credit: “Brian & Hart” is Attractions keyboardist Steve Nieve and his wife. I know this because he told it to me when I met him after a Costello concert in 1983. However, on the songs Nieve writes by himself, he confusingly uses the name Nieve. Got that? Bassist Bruce Thomas and drummer Pete Thomas chime in with a few songs (and play excellently throughout), but it’s mostly Nieve’s show.
Seeing how this is being written for “Lost in the Grooves” and not a site called “The Eighties Top Pop Hits” or something, it probably goes without saying that the public didn’t go mad for The Attractions. Rock critics – who behaved towards Elvis Costello like 13-year-old girls act when they see Justin Timberlake – could not emotionally handle a Costello-less Attractions LP. So they dismissed it as lightweight. But there are enough great tunes on this 16-song album to make it consistently listenable. And to make you wish there had been a follow-up.
“Mad About the Wrong Boy” was originally released as F Beat XXLP8 in 1980 and was re-released on CD in 1999 by Demon Records. It’s available on Amazon.com.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASI ... 33-0730305
