80s in 20 = APNS 40. Yup, The Math Checks Out...

40 isn't a milestone when it's your birthday. I might only speak for myself, but I felt I took like five years in one once that hill was climbed, little health issues and what not cropping up. But for our oldtimer of series here on One Buck Records? Reaching 40 is nothing to sneeze at, so we won't, celebrating its, uh, 40th birthday volume with, uh, a hearty but underplayed 'yay'. And even for this low-key anniversary, we have invited some illustrious guests, as this volume of All Pearls, No Swine has possibly the highest number of high-profile names to date. 

Starting the festivities is Mr. Warren Zevon with the The Envoy-outtake "The Risk", a synth-driven rock track that sounds one of the Springsteen-inspired tunes Zevon would occasionally write at the time. Well, he certainly beat freakin' Rusty Young in fake-Springsteen-ism! (Ka-ching!) Other big name contributors include Ian McCullough, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Bob Welch, and Bonnie Tyler. The latter has the frankly astonishing Jim Steinman-produced cover of CCR's "Have You Ever Seen The Rain", that is really more of a re-imagining, earning Steinman a co-writing credit in the process. Oh, and there's R.E.M. sending us out with their cover of the classic "Moon River", because why the hell not.  

"I'm not sure, we're looking cool here, guys..."

This volume probably doesn't have as many real obscure treasures as other volumes, but folks like Bryce Wemple, Gable Wales, The Jeffords Brothers and Echo Beach hold up the banner of the tiny indie label/self-pulished record fraction. Toys and The Cheepskates bring the power pop/garage rock yo the table, while Swiss AOR popster Phil Carmen goes country pop with "Born A Rider". Mazarati are almost forgotten also-rans from Minneapolis, who were of course protégés of Prince, who gave them a number of songs to record, but after hearing their so-so take on "Kiss" decided to take back the track and recorded it as the classic we all know and love. Mazarati's backing vocals stay in the mix of the released Prince version, which shows what character can do for a song, but just for comparison's sake it's interesting to hear their original take on "Kiss", inferior as it may be. 

The Bellamy Brothers were never cool, and their smooth country-pop is strictly of the okay variety. I tried to put a little comp of them together, but even a ten track album has some less-than-great stuff on it, so I said 'fuck it', finally gave up on that idea, and instead placed thir far and away best song on here. The rest might be not all that, but "Kids Of The Baby Boom" is great, a prototype of Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" perhaps, but with actual insight and humour. They had bigger hits, but never a better song. You will need only one Bellamy Brothers song in your collection, and it's this one (Apologies to "If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me?)", which might deserve inclusion on that title alone. But I digress). 

"Well, look at us, fellas. We really aren't lookin' cool"

All Pearls, No Swine 40 has, as you might have guessed, a ton of stylistic variety from artists both known and unknown, for almost 70 minutes of fine, underrated music from the 80s. Dig it!