Today's Bubbatune - Divinyls
In my quest to capture every song I've ever really loved, I began making compilations, but not just any plain old compilations. No, not me. Instead I started bubbatunes, a collection of compilations and rare albums that have never seen the light of day on CD. So I burn the CDs, I create artwork - artwork which goes above and beyond the typical shared compilation. I tried to create artwork and credits that make the CDs look like they came from your local record store. So far there are about 40 or so CDs in the bubbatunes collection, so I thought I'd take a listen to each of them and let you all know a little about the music I'm listening to and you should be listening to as well...
DIVINYLS : DIVINYTYVE (bub12)
Cover Designed by Bradley Jacobson
First up, the (cleverly) titled "Divinytyve." Now before you all push this off as "Oh yeah they did 'I Touch Myself'" Let me just say the Divinyls (Christina Amphlett & Mark McEntee) are so much more than that one hit, before and after they hit the top 10 with their only charting single the band was great. Chrissy croons and growls through out every song like a leopard in heat while Mark just pounds away at his guitar. The songs are mostly sexual overtures and most would actually make "I Touch Myself" blush if it were able to perform such a feat.
Track List:
1. Good Die Young
2. Sire (Never Let You Go)
3. Human On The Inside
4. Ring Me Up
5. Heart Telegraph
6. Back To The Wall
7. Boys In Town
8. In My Life
9. If Love Was A Gun
10. Science Fiction
11. Pleasure & Pain
12. Elsie
13. Sleeping Beauty
14. Gonna Get You
15. Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore
16. Talk Like The Rain
17. Need A Lover
18. Hey Little Boy
19. I'm Jealous
20. Casual Encounter
21. I Touch Myself
Instead of a basic review, I thought I'd break this section into two parts. First I'll tell you one of my oh so very interesting stories about what goes through my blonde nuggin and how it inspired the compilation then I'll follow it with a few (or hundreds) of words on the songs themselves... so here is a story which relates to the Divinyls:
THE STORY
back in Wisconsin, I hung out with a fab girl named Ryanne Sprae; her real name was Angela Maughermann but she was a rock singer chick so she changed her name and besides would you really want to be known as Angela Maughermann? Anyway, as I had run away from home and was living in a house with a bunch of 21 year olds Ryanne and I bonded over a bastard named Tim. He would screw her over by watching porn while screwing her and he would screw me over by taking my wholesome world in an alley, but I digress. This is not the part that makes me think of the Divinyls. Instead it's the fact that Ryanne who had a ton of great music, taped those Divinyls albums for me and we would listen to them over and over as we drove to our midnight job at the Crack'd Pot - as waitress/cook respectively (you figure it out). She would reminince about her days as a rock singer and one day in particular in high school where it was her goal to get the football jock to do her. She initialized her attack by auditioning for a school talent show that he happened to be involved in. She put on her shortest skirt, her tightest blouse and high heels, sauntered on stage, put in her Divinyls tape and performed "Casual Encounter" to everyone's heated delight. As Ryanne (then Angela) crooned, "Don't come on to me with all those fancy lines/ I can read between them they're like neon signs" "It's just a Casual Encounter," and by the time it was over, the boy/man was on the floor panting and pleading for some Maughermann loving. As I recall, she opted to tease him awhile longer before discovering she didn't really care for football jocks. As for the tight clothes, Angela would re-emerge with a new name but you could still see her lips in her formed to fit jeans.
Now stay tuned for the songs!
posted by swivek @ 12:41 AM
1 Comments:
and now let's look at the actual music shall we?
Why a Divinyls mix when there are surely other comps out there other than the obvious Ryanne Sprae fascination? Well the answer is simple as though there are some good compilations out there (Make Me Happy stands out) there are always so many good songs they left out. Since the band only had one stateside top 40 hit it's not all that imperative to put the same songs on every comp, which is why "Divinytyve" is so, well divine and definitive of the Divinyls.
Combining most of the singles collection (and including a full singles discography in the booklet) I found 21 of my ultimate fav Divinyls songs to show everyone how ingenious they really were. Plus the fact that some songs have never ever been included on a compilation like the singles “Good Die Young” which opens up my compilation, “In My Life” and “Heart Telegraph” which is one of the best songs ever – though it was a B-side to MY introduction to the Divinyls, the single “Pleasure & Pain” which I had to include. “Pleasure & Pain” written by Holly Knight and Mike Chapman (Mike of the production side of Blondie/Pat Benatar and Holly of the writing side to “The Warrior”/”Love Is A Battlefield” etc.) is a lot more toxic and blunt than “I Touch Myself” ever was. “It’s a fine line between pleasure and pain,” croons Chrissy but in between her lover breaking her “body with the back of your hand” she is secretly finding passion in it “please don’t ask me how I’ve been getting off…” If that isn’t an interesting take for a song I don’t know what is. Ironically, the song was also their closest thing to being a hit peaking at #76 in the US in 1985.
I’ve also included a rare nugget known as “Talk Like The Rain” which was on the Australian version of “What A Life!” but never saw a US release. In fact upon research I found out the US versions of both the debut album (“Desperate”) and “What A Life” had different track listings. I couldn’t include all the Australian songs but did include this one.
"Human On The Inside" came from the very last Divinyls album (to date). Due to the frictions between the personality's of Christina and Mark, not to mention the chilly reception from the record companies, Divinyls albums are sporadic at best and this album "Underworld" was only released in Australia along with this great pseudo ballad in which Christina is the subject in an abusive relationship, "There's blood in these veins/and I cry when in pain/I'm only human on the inside." The song's lyrics are great with verses including "I thought you'd come through/I thought you'd come clean/you were the best thing I should never have seen." The song should've been another hit, and even Chrissy Hynde from the Pretenders seemed to have agreed as she redid the song two years later under the title "Human." Unfortunately she didn't have much luck with it on the charts either.
Also from the album is the full on ballad “I’m Jealous” which was apparently featured in Melrose Place and ended up on a Melrose Place soundtrack (who knew?). I never watched the show as it is not Knots Landing but I do love this song. Chrissy opens with “You’ve got a new girlfriend” and you know she isn’t too happy about it. Great song – once again could’ve should’ve been a hit.
The other songs are made up of the first two albums. In Australia, Divinyls got their break by recording an EP soundtrack to the film “Monkey Grip” then they recorded the debut, while in the US the debut album “Desperate” came out with songs from both “Monkey Grip” and Australia’s “Desperate”. They got “Boys In Town” as a single and actually hit #6 down under and why not with lines like, “I am just a red brassiere to all the boys in town.” The first official single was “Science Fiction” with its crazy drum rolls and Chrissy’s howls the song is a hoot.
“Ring Me Up” is a song any 80s aficionado will recognize by the “uh uh” at the beginning as being in the prom scene in “Sixteen Candles” but the rest of the song is one great rocker and never included in any other compilation. Then my ultimate favs from the first album “Elsie” and “Siren”. Ironically when released as a single “Siren” was backed by the wicked wicked “Elsie”. In Australia, it was included as part of “Monkey Grip” as the song is about a heroin overdose and poor Elsie’s downfall, it was actually my inspiration to Swivek’s “Eva” who doesn’t overdose but does shoot everyone who ever did her wrong.
But it’s the bombastics of my ultimate fav Divinyls song ever that throw the compilation into a loop, "Siren (Never Let You Go)". Anyone who ever heard this song or anyone who I ever played it for knows exactly how exciting this little gem is. It's pure balls to the wall rock and roll with Mark taking the lead vocals on the first verse, "I knew when I met you I would not forget you/I knew I had to let you know/I knew it was you who did the wicked voo doo/I'm never gonna let you go oh oh" then Christina jumps in with her growly Betty Boop hiccups and the whole thing goes through new wave trauma! As the guitar solo ends the vocals jump in, "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTU U U U Never Let U Go" Get it. It's great! The song was the second single released from the debut album "Desperate" but it was only released in Australia while the US released "Only You" (not included on this compilation) a song which though good does not measure up to "Siren."
"Casual Encounter" was included on the Australian version of "Desperate" and they released it as a third single putting a re-recorded version of "Gonna Get You" as a Bside. The song included on this compilation is Chrissy at her earliest randiest best.
The albums “What A Life!” and “Temperamental” are usually pretty well defined on other compilations but they also forget some of my favs like “In My Life” with Chrissy’s mad rantings in the middle telling us the tragedies of her life despite “such advantages.” The aforementioned “Heart Telegraph”, “Good Die Young” - a clever clever lyric beginning with the line, “City air/toxic taste” and one of the catchy choruses they’ve come up with. I’m not sure what it’s really about…nuclear war? Sex? Not really sure, I just know “music changes but the dance steps don’t when the good die young…”
Two of my favorite tracks from the 1991 diVinyls album are included, the fun image filled “Need A Lover” with Chrissy crying to the wizards, witches in the tower and any other kind of occult figure to send her a lover and the wicked if not perverse “If Love Was A Gun."
Lest we forget Divinyls did a lot of time between albums doing soudntrack songs, I've included one of their best, "Ain't Gonna Eat Out My Heart Anymore" cleverly put into the "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" film, and interestingly done by Deborah Harry a few years earlier in her film "Intimate Stranger." Then the whole thing ends with that one song everyone expects – “I Touch Myself” and as I do, I am drawn back into the Divinytyve world of the Divinyls and start the CD all over again.
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