From 1982, the exact moment that MTV exploded and bands like Missing Persons were able to break through a very tired soundscape. New Wave and synth bands were suddenly everywhere, with bright music, bright colors, stylistic videos – a nice reprieve from a very stale rock scene at the time. And early MTV was all about giving these new bands an airing. It really felt exciting – not that I loved everything that was played, but I really did buy into a lot of the new wave videos as the future of music. Some of it was good music, some of it was good visuals, some of it was both.
This album really hit as the sound of the moment. It got a lot of plays back in the day, and tracks like “Noticeable One,” “Destination Unknown,” and “Words” made their way onto the mix tapes of the day (but two of those had appeared on the previous EP). That appreciation didn’t extend far into the ’80s, as this began to sound a little dated to me pretty early on. That’s often the problem with a sound that captures a moment – once the moment is over, I’m not as interested in the music that represents it. Not always, but often. The band put out another album in 1984 that didn’t chart as high as this (this went to #17, the next to #43), but by then I had moved on, and paid it no mind. Over the years, this has just become a nostalgia piece, something I play if I really want to remember 1982, but otherwise: not my jam.
