Some bands just seem to be brushed aside as ripofffs or spoofs. The Tubes to some extend suffer this as their own will to be outrageous, humoristic and maybe slightly intellectually arrogant, like an american version of 10cc, leads people to not take them as serious as they might deserve
Shot by Helge Øverås
At the turn of the seventies into the eighties, there were numerous “concept” albums about the future of the digitized and televised world and Remote Control is another one in that caregory, based losely on the book Being There and its television addicted protagonist.
Several of the the track titles have relation to television and generally, I find those to be the best on the album. The Tubes are pretty diverse in their expression even when they mostly stick to a balanced rock and new wave mix formula.
The track Love”s A Mystery sticks out pretty much as it is a mediocre sentimental kind of love song.
What makes this album a joy is the, at times, going completely overboard in pompousness mixed with synth new wave elements. It makes it a quite unique sounding album. I cannot think of any other band or album coming close to the formula Tubes succesfully use here. The closest thing would be The Cars i guess, but they are not nearly as wide and pompous as this. Early Saga might also come to mind but they are more proggy and precise.
This one is certainly one that is worth getting and can with a bit of luck be found in the dollar bin