If you know me you know I'm no fan of the 80's. I don't like the clothes, the makeup, the hair, pretty much anything to do with style. And certainly the most memorable thing to not like about the 80's was the music. Despite all these prejudices, somehow I ended up loving the Payola$ hit Eyes of a Stranger.
The song is just really well put together and actually sounds great. The 80's was a lot about experimenting with meshing together different genres of international music and trying to make use of synths and other digital equipment, most often just mashing stuff together without regard for actually trying to make it sound good. I'm sure there are other gems scattered within all those massacred musical notes, but someone else can wade through that swamp and try to find something actually good.
I'm kind of leery of listening to the rest of the album because it will probably make me hate them. It'll probably happen someday. Apparently the two main artists Rock and Hyde met at high school in Langford, which is now a degenerate cultural wasteland of a suburb, but I'm sure was a nice place to raise kids 30 years ago.
Hmm what else. A payola is when a record exec bribes a radio station to play a song that is disguised as just being a song played as part of regular play, or playing it more often than they normally would. People seem to perceive a song as a hit based on how often it's played. The Payola$ decided to use the name during the punk explosion of the 70's...maybe because their favorite punk songs weren't getting any radio play? Maybe their name was an indication they would sell out given any possible opportunity....I guess I do like them better than Rancid.
