Tags
Beyond the Door, Hot Issue, Neurotica, Phaseshifter, Redd Kross, Redd Kross (The Red Album), Research the Blues, Show World, Teen Babes from Monsanto, Third Eye
What band variously sounds like American punk circa 1978, Frank Zappa, The Sweet, Cheap Trick, pop metal, with maybe with a touch of ELO? Only Redd Kross can pull all that off without skidding into incoherence. Of course, they don’t pour all those influences into every song, which means an album by Redd Kross can sound like multiple bands. That’s not to say their overall sound hasn’t changed over the years. This is a band that continues to move to adjacent genres without definitively leaving the old ones behind. Take the first EP and album: 1980’s debut Redd Kross and 1982’s Born Innocent. Good time, grinding, American punk and roll. By 1984’s album number two though things start to branch out, as Teen Babes From Monsanto shines a light on the band’s emerging power pop chops. I’ll confess, for the longest time Redd Kross was more a band I’d heard about rather than heard. To rectify that and catch me (and maybe you) up, this post scans every RK album for only the most hooky numbers IMHO. Redd Kross my heart!
Redd Kross got their start in the hot heat of America’s punk summers 1978 and 1979. But I wonder if it wasn’t just the manic in-your-face intensity of that genre that appealed to them because over the years they would also show a lot of love for over the top pop-metal excess, faux stadium rock, even a few tongue-in-cheek prog rock interludes. Yet for me their power pop tunes have always been a cut above in terms of craft and melodic ingenuity. The turn comes three cuts into Teen Babes From Monsanto when “Heaven Only Knows” pumps that fifties bubblegum pop nostalgia. Then “Don’t Turn Your Back On Me” has a seventies glam meets new wave feel. On 1987’s Neurotica “It’s the Little Things” reworks the disaster rock formula of The Crystals and Ronettes to good effect.
By 1990 the band had signed to a major label and released Third Eye, a more slick production. The power pop single here is certainly smooth. “Annie’s Gone” is carefully crafted with a Cars-like precision, resulting in the band’s only American chart hit. On 1993’s Phaseshifter “Saragon” is positively Beatlesque with a Live at the Hollywood Bowl kind of Lennon energy. RK rounded out the nineties with 1997’s Show World and, again, the power pop sound notably shifted. “Mess Around” sounds a bit Crowded House while “Get Out of Myself” reminds me of other strong 1990s power pop acts like Sloan.
As the twentieth century faded out so too did Redd Kross, or so it seemed. The first decade of the new millennium failed to deliver any new material. Then in 2012 Research the Blues arrived heralding Redd Kross 2.0 had finally arrived. Here I like some of the late-breaking album selections like “Winter Blues” with its winning Hoodoo Gurus vibe or “Hazel Eyes” which really has the makings of a Big Star single sound-alike. 2016’s Hot Issue was a compilation of sorts, bringing together rare and unreleased material. Like the 1970s pitch-perfect riff on The Sweet throughout “Insatiable Kind” or the unstoppable guitar pop of “Don’t Take Your Baby Downtown.” The band resurfaced again in the two-thousand-and-teens with 2019’s Beyond the Door, proving their 2012 comeback was no fluke. So many great tunes here. “There’s No One Like You” sounds like a great lost Odds single. Or get close to “Ice Cream (Strange and Pleasing)” where the band is doing a full-on sixties garage power pop vamp a la the Troggs or Monkees.
Fans waiting for a ticker tape parade return of Redd Kross got their wish this year with the release of a sprawling self-titled album of all new material. Redd Kross (The Red Album) offers up 18 cuts and an album design mimicking The Beatles (The White Album). My own choices for winning should-be singles seems to accord with the band, who’ve turned both tunes into early release videos and singles. “The Main Attraction” builds from a slow start to a real stunner of a showcase single. Then “I’ll Take Your Word For It” works a Merseybeat seam in a style similar to contemporary acts like The Tearaways. I’d also single out “Good Times Propaganda Band,” a track that sounds like a cross between Paul Collins and mid-period Beatles. Of course, “Born Innocent” is also pretty special and the name of a recent documentary on the band.
Redd Kross, where have I been all your life? Clearly wasting precious leisure time I could have spent with all your records. Don’t make my mistakes dear readers, complete your Redd Kross catalogue today!
Poprock Record 