Review Summary: While not exactly terrible, a novelty album regarding 80s videogames coming from a clear one-hit wonder act is only going to be as good as you reasonably expect.
Novelty hits are kind of a rarity these days, and to be honest, that's a blessing. Gangnam Style is the closest we've come to the likes of the Ketchup Song, Crazy Frog, the Hamster Dance and so much other pop culture ephemera. However, given video games are growing exponentially as a medium, and with it Gen-X nostalgia for how much better they were, one such song that keeps reappearing is the one about bringing a pocket full of quarters to the arcade (I mean, it even landed in the Adam Sandler flick Pixels of all things). Jerry Buckner and Gary Garcia, a musical duo who had recorded here or there for about ten years, lucked into a gold-certified single with Pac-Man Fever in 1982, signed a deal with Columbus and produced an album later that year. By all accounts, the idea to create an album centered entirely around video games was foisted on the two by executive demands and far away from their actual intentions as a legitimate act. And, uh, you can tell.
But for what it's worth, I always thought the song that gave Buckner & Garcia their infamy is just fine. The joke is that the title is a sort of play on Ted Nugent's Cat Scratch Fever, turning the sexually charged hard rock number into a subdued pop ditty about being addicted to that Namco arcade classic. Subdued is the key word here; while it's not exactly an unplugged number by any means, the sparse instrumentation besides the kinda rockabilly piano, and some typical harmonies in the chorus, allow the premise to stand on its own as a fun inventive glimpse into early 80s pop culture, and the call-and-response simply stands as a great hook. But tell me, would you have wanted to hear this song seven more times? Or, really, even once more? Pac-Man Fever is the exact song that dooms you to the status of a one-hit wonder.
If I had to place the band's overall sound somewhere, it would be Hall & Oates with less gumption. There's as much to-ing and fro-ing between straightforward pop-rock (Pac-Man Fever, Do The Donkey Kong), full on new wave synth pop (Ode To Centipede, The Defender) and somewhere in between (Mousetrap, Hyperspace). And though their penchant for very punchy hooks and forgettable verses definitely echoes the more famed pop duo, the production on here sounds way more dated, whether it's the original 1982 recordings or the 1999 redubs. Jerry Garcia---I mean Gary Garcia doesn't command nearly as much confidence as a singer, often relying on aftereffects to carry his vocal affectations, though I suppose there is a certain fullness to his tamber which doesn't make him the worst singer in the world.
But there's one thing that definitely separates Hall & Oates from these two, and it's the sense of dynamics they brought to many of their songs. The duo felt like a duo with all the fire that brings, but so much of Pac-Man Fever feels flat and on autopilot, often even when the melodies are firing on all cylinders. I have to imagine the call-and-response on the title track is what made it a home run beyond the subject matter, and though it is attempted once more in Do The Donkey Kong, the only track that can really claim the same sense of dynamism, fullness and involvement is Mousetrap, whose stuttered delivery and stabbing synth chords create a generally punchy tune, with descending verse melodies actually contrasting well against this framework. It is also, tragically, perhaps the only other song that doesn't really overstay its welcome.
I bring up Do The Donkey Kong so much because for better or worse, it strikes me as the only other song that could have been as big as Pac-Man Fever, but whatever cheesy charm the forced cheer of the chorus brings, with the attempts to institute a new dance craze, is watered down when the outro repeats this mantra with no evolvement beyond strained higher register delivery on the part of Garcia. And just about every song is like this, including the title track. It hits a fever pitch with Ode To Centipede, which doesn't even have a real chorus and just goes on.
It just goes to show that the album reeks of executives foisting standards upon the group with, for the most part, little to no effort on the band's part in response, which is why even with the occasional good or even great hook, the album falls flat as a full LP. Even though different songs may echo different styles, from the smoky, almost spoken word delivery of Froggy's Lament, to the soaring pop of Hyperspace and the triumphant piano lines of The Defender and Goin' Berzerk, the problems are pretty uniform, especially with regards to the overblown, yet cheap, production. Again, the title track sounds like the only song with any restraint; most of the others feature loud, tacky synths, and the random smatterings of video game sound effects certainly don't help. Goin' Berzerk, despite starting with an accidentally beautiful piano line, may emphasise the album's biggest flaws, with a screeching synth solo that doesn't even sound finished, and the refrain of “berzerk, berzerk, berzerk over you” going on forever.
The album may be worth listening to for those curious on the lingering status of one of 80s pop culture's biggest victims and most obvious targets of irrelevance, so fringe did the runaway appeal of the hit single seem. And much like Hall & Oates, they do occasionally trip into a great hook or melody, but unlike Hall & Oates, they don't have especially great production, interplay or even simple charm to elevate them beyond their obvious songwriting restrictions. Dated does not begin to describe the project, which seems to echo the effort implied by the circumstances that birthed it in the first place.
Although to be fair, the timeliness of the subject matter is one thing Buckner & Garcia could not predict. Seriously, does anyone even remember Berzerk?
