The Fixx

Whereas rock video was originally a means of enhancing the music, the Fixx have turned
the equation around. With vaguely foreboding bad-dream imagery drifting through every
song, Reach the Beach seems more a series of treatments for MTV than anything else. Like
many British synth bands, the Fixx have managed to parlay a lightweight microchip-pop
sensibility into a chart-topping formula, complementing the yearning vagaries of... More >

As with most Anglodisco, this record's success isn't totally bewildering--it assembles an acceptable complement of catchy secondhand riffs and beats. Only I suspect that what sells it is the very thing that makes me hope I never hear those riffs and beats again--Cy Curnin's agonized can-this-be-adulthood? vocal style, influenced by everyone from Bryan Ferry to Lou Gramm but oh so much more doubt-ridden than any old fart. (Grade: C)