The Go-Go's

Released quickly after the success of their debut, this 1982 effort is not quite as fun as the first, but it does contain the great single, "Vacation." A bright-eyed take on the Capitols' "Cool Jerk" tries to lighten things up, but the rest of the songs are not quite up to speed.

At a time when most rock bands deplete their store of ideas in the space of a single album,
the second LP from the Go-Go's effects an amusing miracle. Vacation takes the same themes
that made this group's debut album a Top Ten smash–dating, dancing and dishing the
dirt–and turns these evanescent pleasures into passionate, even important, music. I was
one of about four people in America who did not think that this Los Angeles quin... More >

Bizzers will no doubt rend their overpriced garments when this fails to follow Beauty and the Beat into Platinum City, but all its failure will prove is that you can't build a wall of sound (much less an empire) out of tissue paper. The uniform thinness of the non-Kathy Valentine songs here does clear up the mystery of why virtual non-writer Belinda Carlisle gets to play frontwoman--her voice fits the image. (Grade - B-)