Adam’s World Weekly 3/9

Over the weekend I did a little record store therapy, heading to The Archive to go through the boxes of discount vinyl.

I went with a plan – look for one band in particular (which I did not find), and see what else might be interesting. Basically, if something catches my eye, I’ll give an album a look over, and if there’s an aspect of it that makes me want to know more, I’ll do a quick Google to find out something about the artist, and determine if it’s a buy.

I wound up bringing home the following four albums, one of which is a double album.

What tickled my fancy about those particular albums? Glad you asked!

Valerie Carter – The album cover immediately drew me in, because there’s a timeless aspect to it. When I flipped the album over, and saw both Linda Ronstadt, and Deniece Williams as backup vocalists, and Jackson Browne as a player on the album, my interest was piqued.

The album turned out to be a fantastic buy, because Carter was a tremendous vocalist, and the main reason she didn’t stay in the public consciousness is that she simply wasn’t all that interested in the fame aspect of things.

Her range, from the achingly beautiful country ballad “Heartache,” to the bluesy “Back To Blue Some More,” was insanely impressive.

Sam Harris – Everything about the album art screamed ‘80s, and when I looked up the video for the lead single, “Sugar Don’t Bite,” about 30 seconds in it was so bonkers I said, “Oh, I need to find out about the rest of this!”

The album is a bit of a mixed bag, but Harris, who has gone on to have a successful career in multiple forms of entertainment, could create a unique cover for a song. This album came out in 1984, and it has a cover of “You Keep Me Hangin’ On” that was clearly the blueprint for Kim Wilde’s version of the song that came out two years later. The highlight, however, is his cover of the Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul song “Inside of Me,” which takes it in a completely different direction, and is phenomenal. I had to drop the needle on it twice I was so impressed.

Also impressive, Sam’s sense of fashion. We definitely need to bring these looks back, right?

King – If you looked at this album cover and thought, “They MUST be an English new wave band,” you would be correct. I hadn’t heard of them, but in my defense they were only around from ’83 to ’86, and their two albums were only big in the UK. After giving Bitter Sweet a spin I gotta say it’s a really good album, and an enjoyable listen. Plus, with the song “I Cringed, I Died, I Felt Hot” King somehow predicted how people would speak 40 years in the future. That’s pretty damned impressive!

Hitline – I don’t want to say too much about this double LP, because I plan on writing about it for a future Classic Compilations column, but when I flipped it over, and saw a track listing of songs almost all from ’79 that included Michael Jackson, Raydio, Isaac Hayes, Suzi Quatro, and Robert Palmer, it was an immediate buy.

Speaking of things that are easy to say yes to, you’ll want to say yes to clicking on this week’s big interview, because it’s with two members of the Y2K era boy band Dream Street. I met them backstage earlier this year at a show, and when we caught up over Zoom they told me about what it’s been like reimagining their boy band songs for who they are now as men in their 40s, as well as how their lives changed when a member of the band passed away during the pandemic.

In addition to that feature, I also have fresh editions of Pop Shots, and my NYC Scene Report for you to check out.

Read the full interview here

Read the full column here

Read the full column here

As always, thanks for reading, and have a fantastic week!

– Adam Bernard