In the Meantime...

I'm working on 2 media papers and a website, so for your reading pleasure I'll be using someone else's literature. This is probably ... almost definitely ... the best review I've ever read on Amazon. It's for Sixteen Tambourines by The Three O'Clock (found at random while looking for the lyrics to "Jet Fighter Man"):

What Time Is It?
April 21, 2003
By A Customer

Jesus died at three o'clock. The previous band name (The Salvation Army) had to be deep-sixed, for copyright reasons. But you can't keep a good band down, and the boys were going to have their last laugh, at the expense of the petty Christians and their humanity-serving organizations. Take that you Bible thumpers!

But is this a good band, and are they boys? Yes to the first part, no to the second part. These are chipmunks with bad haircuts and oxford shirts. But unfortunately, the name "The Chipmunks" was also copyrighted...

But again, you can't keep a good band down. And even a chipmunk can dream...of being a Jet Fighter. Jet Fighter Man/That's What I Am/Cuz Tanks Go Too Slow.

When I was in grammar school, the word "gay" was tossed around among the kids as a perjorative. Immature young punks we were, but the word "gay" wasn't a sexually loaded insult. Just a derisive term for things that weren't cool, or tended towards the "sissy" part of the coolness spectrum. If I may return to my grade school days, let's just go ahead and call this the "gay"-est music you'll ever hear. If Isaac Hayes is matter, Michael Quercio is anti-matter. If you're driving through the "tough" section of town, you do not want your windows rolled down with The Three O'Clock blaring on your stereo.

But I sincerely love this band, and have taken much abuse for listening to them. Funny looks, shaking heads, snide remarks. I have received much disdain for my appreciation and affinity of this band. And Sixteen Tambourines is their finest album. Even with the Bee Gees cover.

Jet Fighter is quite simply the perfect pop song, and who'd a thunk it, with the less-than-promising intro to the song. Weird electronic twang into a cheesy high keyboard with a stupidly-simple drum rat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Then the most absurd guitar progression ever, a chromatic run of notes that goes absolutely nowhere. Verse one is shouty and stupid. But then...the chorus kicks in. And the song takes off. Like a Jet Fighter. And then you're tapping your foot, having a good time. The Stone Roses would imitate this in the closing song to their classic debut. I Am the Resurrection starts out with a simple drumbeat, a repetitive bassline, and a chant-chanty verse. And you don't appreciate it until you hear the song again and again and again.

Compare the guitar line in Stupid Einstein to Sally Cinnamon. This is a formidable band we're dealing with here. You can forgive the reference to the "master race" in this song. It's bubble gum pop sui generis. Tomorrow is driven by a pulsing keyboard riff and a heavenly vocal melody, and the middle eight is the highlight of the song, not just a trite instrumental but more vocals telling us to "Stay Young/When Life/Goes Wrong/I'll Help You." Have more soothing words ever been sung? It took me...over three years...to appreciate On My Own, but now I think it's possibly the class song of the album.

It seems that most Three O'Clock aficionados consider Arrive Without Traveling to be there magnus opus. I think they are tragically misguided. The songs of AWT are more complex, the band is tighter, and the opening track is ferocious (for chipmunks that is). And then Hand in Hand...oh I SWOON just thinking about that song. But on Sixteen Tambourines you have this onslaught of pop diamonds, one after the other, and they turn your brain into that sickeningly sweet red jelly inside of those powdered donuts. This is one of the top 5 albums from the 1980s, in my estimation. And the places this album will take you. A Day in Erotica...hear what chipmunks sound like when they are in heat! When Lightning Starts...funky chipmunks with saxophones! And don't forget that Bee Gees cover!

Oh yeah. Ignore tracks 11-16.