I just love this album and actually bought the tape in 1984 when it was realeased. Danny realeased SOLO as a supposed solo album but it’s obvious his old band Oingo Boingo is playing on it. Danny is famous nowadays for writing TV and music theme songs. He is most famous for writing The Simpsons theme song.
Review by E. Sloan
Most of the reviews below are right on. When this came out originally in 1984 I foolishly trusted the critics and ignored it, but I gave it another try recently and it hooked me immediately. Every song is strong in its own way and that’s quite an accomplishment at any time, but especially in 1984 when MTV and new wave were really encouraging “hits” and most albums had one or two big songs and a lot of filler (for example, Nena’s “99 Red Balloons,” Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s “Relax,” and Thompson Twins – well, two actually – “Doctor! Doctor!” and “Hold Me Now”). Of course, there were a few monster albums in 1984, Cyndi Lauper’s “She’s So Unusual,” The Cars “Heartbeat City” in particular, and these hugely commercial albums only detracted from the smaller, quirkier releases such as Elfman’s. Such a shame. I enjoy them all equally now. A couple of other observations:
There are (at least) two versions of “Gratitude:” The lead track on this album, called “Gratitude (Short Version)” which is 5:11 in length, and track 7 on the Beverly Hills Cop soundtrack CD (anybody remember Eddie Murphy?), my preferred mix which includes a “spoken” section in the middle, which is ironically shorter, at 5:04. (Maybe the original soundtrack LP version was longer? I don’t think it was. So maybe there’s a third longer version out there, a ‘dance mix’ perhaps? Probably.) Oh yeah, then there’s the 4:48 (shorter yet!) one recorded for Boingo Alive, blurring the distinction between solo and band even more.
And, as noted in previous reviews here, of course this is “an Oingo Boingo album.” Elfman had sole songwriting credit on almost every song Boingo recorded, so the reverse is actually more true: Boingo albums are really Elfman albums. This is the one that’s more accurately named. Don’t get me wrong, every one of those crazy players added enormous character to the Boingo sound: Steve Bartek on guitar; Sam Phipps, Dale Turner, & Leon Schneiderman on horns, Carl Graves on keyboards, John Avila on bass and Johnny `Vatos’ Hernandez on percussion – all brilliant. It’s just that there’s no doubt as to who was running the show.
Anyway, if you’re a big early-to-mid period Boingo fan (like me), and/or New Wave fan in general, you’ll want this in your collection. In general this is not quite as “dark”, and horn section less prominent, than the official Boingo catalog, but the songs here are so catchy they will charm you in their own way.