More Massachusetts tuneage for you, only these lads weren't from Boston, rather a little further west in Northampton. What few references that exist online regarding The Elevators invariably attach the new wave tag to this quintet, but power pop is more applicable. Adopting the more gimmicky attributes of The Cars and Cheap Trick, it's pretty clear a few songs into Frontline that the Elevators are not cut from austere cloth. There's something cheeky afoot on this record, but a more ironic angle would have made this one stick out a little more. Lines like "Love is like wearing a rayon shirt/making me itch and making me sweat" are about as deep as these folks get. Frontline doesn't offer much in the way of knockouts, but fortunately it's a record that will capably stimulate fans of Tommy Tutone, The A's and the Clocks. 01. Frontline
02. Girlfriend's Girlfriend
03. Stop the World
04. Stickball Kids
05. Lie Detector
06. Don't Let me Die
07. Tropical Fish
08. Lies
09. Johnny
10. Friends
11. On the Wire
Hear
8 comments:
Remember playing this on college radio a LOT.
My girlfriend's got a girlfriend....g-g-girlfriend...
Cheeky, indeed!
Hello,
Would be interested in hearing this. Can you re-up?
Thanks!
SUCH a new wave power pop classic. Growing up in Boston, there were a lot of bands inspired and influenced by the Cars. The best of the bunches locally were the Rings and the Elevators. "Frontline" was like the 1st cousin of "Candy O", filled with keyboard driven new wave with not a seriously duff song in the batch - and plenty quite wonder 'n great ones. Always fantasized about finding an unreleased 2nd album of from them(or a 3rd one from the Rings) as they were on a roll at this time.
Hi again. Any chance you can reup this so we can hear it for The Listening Post?
These guys played at my high school graduation party in 1980. It was an awesome time.... for the first set at least, then it rained a bit and they packed up and left. I made up for it a year later by playing this album a lot on my college radio show.
I bought this album when it was released in 1980; I've always loved it; I still listen to it regularly. I really wish that it had been released on CD; but my CD transfer sounds great.
Late for the party, but here I am. Thanks for sharing! Love this album!
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