Customer Reviews

Drop Out With the Barracudas

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Do not listen to the review that gave it only one star! I have owned this album since the 1980's and I NEVER get tired of it. If you like the surf and hot rod tunes of the early 1960's, you'll love the upbeat songs. The darker tunes draw you in and remind you that all is not rosy and about surf and sun. What a fantastic contrast, and one that keeps the record from becoming boring! The guitar riffs are all either rocking or haunting, and are easily memorable. The band manages to take a very limited sub-genre--surf music--and turn it into a varied tapestry of similarly styled, but constantly fresh sounds. There is even some humor. I cannot recommend this album enough. If you love surf music, but think the Beach Boys were a little wimpy, YOU WILL LOVE IT. If you love good ol' rock and roll, YOU WILL LOVE IT. If you love Sixties garage rock bands like the Knickerbockers, Count Five, et al, you will love it. Every song is good, and every song is memorable. It took a long time for me to admit it, since my favorite song is by another artist, but I believe 'Drop Out with the Barracudas' may be my favorite album of all time. It certainly has survived many changes in my musical taste. Buy it just out of curiosity: but buy it! You will love it! Don't take comparisons to the Flamin' Groovies too seriously: I've heard the Groovies and this band is WAY better. My one criticism is that the record has been reissued so many times that the songs do not always run in the same order and often do not have exactly the same track listings. Buy this one and you get all the songs, the B-sides, and some rarities. I just finished ordering a "spare" copy; I don't want to be without this record if my "play" copy gets too badly scratched to play. This is my 'desert island disc' for sure.

Garage, Power Pop and Surf, mix in the sound of the Flamin' Groovies with the Beach Boys and you can see how they were ignored in 1980.
This may be the best CD you don't already own!!

Every band, no matter how much they accomplish during their existence, has to start somewhere. For the English/Canadian garage band the Barracudas, Drop Out... was where they began. This reissue has the original 1981 release, the associated b-sides from the singles, and seven tracks that were released later on, well after they had left EMI.

The original release is neatly divided into two halves, reflecting the two genres they initially focused on. Tracks 1-7 (side one of the LP) showcase chiming, at times doomy sounding folk rock numbers; these get extra heft thanks to a deep reverberating production akin to what Dave Edmunds applied to some of the Flamin' Groovies late 70's releases. Highlights here are the originals "I Can't Pretend", "We're Living In Violent Times", "Somewhere Outside" and the cover of "Codeine". Here the Barracudas show a feeling of tenseness and paranoia about the rapidly changing political climate, as well as a growing sense that their updating of mid-60's rock was making them out of place in fashion-conscious Britain (this proved to be true; they had more success in continental Europe, especially France, than in Britain after this album). By contrast, tracks 8-14 (side two) is fun, often satirical, surf rock given a garage slant. The emphasis on these tracks is fun; even in the tragic story of "His Last Summer" (a surfer who perishes taking one last ride), the Barracudas sing with their tongues firmly in their cheeks, acknowledging this is not to be taken as a serious, cautionary tale. The side, and the album, ends with their early statement of purpose, the anthemic "(I Wish It Could Be) 1965 Again", complete with a roll call of all the bands and trends of that year they loved. The extra tracks follow in the vein of the main album, with the highlight, for me anyway, being the originally unissued "Grammar Of Misery", a folk rock piece that also showed some of the toughness the band would develop on their later releases (see their Mean Time album).

The Barracudas may have felt, as one of the songs on here proclaims, that "This Ain't My Time", but that proved to be premature, as they would persist through the 80s and 90s, with more lineups and more recordings, in the process becoming one of the leading lights of the 1980's garage/pop/psych movement. So, if you weren't around back then but have an interest in the 80s era garage bands, and want a place to start, Drop Out... is a fine introduction. And, for $5 through the Amazon Marketplace, at a cheap price as well.