The Go-Go's: Talk Show : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Fizzy and feisty, the bracingly fresh sound of Talk Show explodes like a just uncorked bottle of cold champagne. Faced with the most critical album of their career – an LP that will determine whether the band will be taken as a serious outfit or merely as a cute but talent-poor pentad of ponytail rockers – the Go-Go's have shrugged off the commercial pressure to rehash their earlier successes and have delivered instead a bold, unselfconscious LP of out-and-out rock & roll. Whatever failures do exist, they are not ones of nerve.

It's no wonder that the members of the Go-Go's are so excited about this LP: Talk Show is a player's album, deriving much of its strength from the muscular, almost brash sound of the band's instruments. Martin Rushent produced, but you'll hear none of the technopop he pioneered with the Human League. Talk Show is all rock & roll – full-throttle guitars, spritely keyboards and an especially praiseworthy performance from drummer Gina Schock, who slams through the album's ten tracks like a woman possessed.

Of course, this additional punch means that the light, cheery (or twee, some might say) melodies that have been the mainstay of the Go-Go's' music since the group's inception are harder to find, and some listeners may be discouraged after giving the album an initial spin. But that loss is mitigated by the sheer aggressiveness of the band's approach, which becomes instantly apparent from the album's opener, "Head over Heels." Instead of a wan, poppy guitar line, multi-instrumentalist Charlotte Caffey dashes out an abrupt keyboard figure, the guitars kick in and, before you know it, you're in the middle of a real rock & roll song. The cut suffers from a typical Go-Go's weakness – strong verse, weak chorus – but the band does manage to liberate itself from pop-song formula. There's an uptempo keyboard solo and a bass-and-drums break – the sort of small touches that turn pop songs into more substantial fare.

Rushent infuses a zesty Merseybeat sound into some of the songs that recalls but doesn't replicate that style's most appealing effects. Best of that bunch is Caffey and rhythm guitarist Jane Wiedlin's "Turn to You," in which the pair uninhibitedly thrash their two-chord attack atop bright backing vocals and an adrenaline-driven rhythm section. Bassist Kathy Valentine's oomphy walk-downs highlight Wiedlin's Pretenders-like "Capture the Light" (imagine Chrissie Hynde after est) and spark her and Schock's tough-minded "You Thought" ("How come you keep repeating/Each word you never said"). It makes you wonder what this band might have done with some of the songs on Vacation had they not been so rushed for a follow-up to their surprise smash, Beauty and the Beat.

But old Go-Go's fans needn't despair. The endearing self-perceptions that have always informed the band's songs are still present, albeit in smaller and more easily appreciated doses. Check out the novel stance of the album's wrap-up, "Mercenary," a waltz for twelve-string acoustic and martial snare, in which it's the woman who yearns, "I just wanted to make you/I never meant to break you," while the heartbroken guy begs. "Have some mercy on me." Or Wiedlin's unexpectedly touching "Forget That Day," a lament for lost love that's dotted with tuneful hooks and enough wistful self-deprecation ("I knew I'd lost my heart/But I just said I hate heights") to charm the hardest of hearts.

But perhaps the best meeting place of the old and new Go-Go's sound is "Yes or No," written by Wiedlin and the Mael brothers from Sparks. The verse may be awfully light ("You're alone and I am too/You're my idea of a pretty view"), and vocalist Belinda Carlisle flirts with pitch problems. But out of the blue, Schock smashes in with some of the toughest into-the-chorus stick work since John Cougar's "Hurts So Good," and the rest is a beautifully harmonized pop offering. "Yes or no," intones Carlisle above an aural setting that's both twinkly and tough. "I'll take it fast or slow."

Such is the album's emphasis on songwriting and instrumental prowess that Carlisle tends to fade from view. It's hard for her airy voice to compete with some of the firepower, but she turns in a low-end workout on the mid-Sixties-style raver "I'm the Only One," and her girl-group histrionics highlight "Beneath the Blue Sky."

Whether this album will revive the Go-Go's cooled-off career is another story. The record seems to lack a must-have track on the order of "We Got the Beat" or "Vacation." Let it be noted, though, that not so long ago, this band had the rock world at its feet and refused to go for the commercial kill. There were no big-dollar endorsement deals, no Go-Go's lunchboxes. If nothing else, Talk Show proves that music is what really matters to this band. And their enthusiastic commitment to that music might be Talk Show's finest selling point.