Review Summary: Surviving the 80s, Part One
In terms of music, the 1980s were as unique as the previous period with its impassioned outbreak of energy and creativity (the 70s), and the subsequent reinterpretation of established canons and the search for new forms (the 90s). The imaginative solos and licks of hard rock guitars lost ground to the laser beams of dazzling synths. The fancy smattering of drums was replaced by the steady pace of the tick-tock beat. Melodies became simpler, and songs shorter, more accessible, and blatantly aimed at wider audiences. Many performing musicians who had previously soared hit the wall of artistic decline. In hindsight, the reasons were various, but usually they were rooted in the fact that it is practically impossible to maintain a high bar indefinitely (only a few managed that) since so much had already been poured and imprinted into the annals, yet the call of a new musical age with its own peculiarities needed to be answered. And probably the main challenge was the desire to keep floating on the ever-changing and treacherous waters of trends and, above all, changing technical forms of expression. This resulted in typicality, repeatability, and simplification, accompanied by a deficiency of fresh ideas, leading to a retrospectively valid tendency to bottle the period up in a narrow vessel marked the “80s sound”. Many couldn’t survive the new age, many survived but lost their weight significantly, but some managed to ride atop that wicked time period (often thanks to a deliberate resistance to prevailing trends).
Here we present a trip to these controversial and ambiguous times, when external attributes (flamboyance, showiness, accessibility, polish, and electronics) suddenly overshadowed a richness of ideas and innovation. The main character of this mini-chronicle will be the not-so-unknown Rick Springfield, who released his commercially successful studio album
Working Class Dog at the dawn of the decade.
Considering that the LP is his fifth (if we include the Mission Magic! show soundtrack and the LP of the same name from 1974) and he had already proved himself somewhat in the 70s, it comes as no surprise that this record contains a residual charge of the past. The rock thrust and generally solid guitar support are present on the first side of the album, but it definitely bears the toll of the period. Produced with a clear and palpable professional approach – proving Springfield’s rise as a musician – the LP aims squarely at the mainstream with gimmicks and production decisions that would soon become the clichés of the period. It is not surprising that the main hit, which turned out to be the artist’s calling card that stuck to him as his sole reference (
Jessie’s Girl), draws more from earlier experiences than from trying to pander to the spirit of the present. It is a good song, obviously, notably for its simple melody and inherited sense of a hit, but it isn’t the best one in Rick Springfield’s wide arsenal and undeservingly overshadows his other musical accomplishments (especially those from the 21st century).
As for the other cuts, despite a noticeable attempt to vary the material (the thoroughly out-of-context near-jazz
Red Hot & Blue Love and probably the best track on the record, the ambient and fragile
Inside Silvia), the desire to create Top 40 singles ultimately outweighs any deeper artistic efforts. The LP is filled with hit songs (mainly of the arena-rock format) tied to a specific date – 1981, to be precise. But credit must be given to Rick: the tracks are good enough as they are performed and ordered in such a way that nothing sticks out, letting the songs introduce themselves to the audience like, “Hi, I’m a No. 1 hit” or “My name is a Lovely Ballad”. The album flies by in its brief 32 minutes, leaving the same pleasant, fleeting impression as nice company sitting next to you on a short flight.
As a result,
Working Class Dog doesn’t bind you to anything, nor does it claim to be anything more than a decent chart performer and a platinum-selling record. It is such a middle-of-the-road album that it is difficult to determine whether it’s good or bad; it’s simply fine. Moreover, by that definition, it can be referred to as part of majority – striving not to be somewhere interesting, but rather wherever everybody else is. At the ascent of his career, Rick Springfield managed to pull off a grade-A effort in this regard; sales and those damned associations are proof of that. As for purely artistic accomplishments, let’s try looking for them in other LPs of the time. Maybe we’ll get lucky.
