Life Beyond Bubblegum

 

Perhaps it is curious that I own this album by seventies teen favorite Shaun Cassidy, but this one album Wasp is beyond Shaun’s usual bubblegum. Shaun Cassidy's last album is not a brilliant work, it's just unexpected. This album is what the stuffy music collector wants out of pop music artists; it's not about feeding the mainstream, but rather about stepping out of the box. This is the one album you pull out to surprise your friends who might recoil at the sight of this bubblegum star. Wasp is just interesting enough and perhaps just good enough to be beyond a closet favorite in my collection.

I believe I learned about this record via college radio close its release in 1980. For years I had the record on vinyl and just recently found it reissued on CD. At the time of it's release Shaun’s core audience of teenaged girls were entering early adulthood. His previous album Room Service didn’t chart and so in an effort to hang onto his music career he needed to change his image to a more grown up and perhaps edger style. With a new direction in mind he employed music veteran Todd Rundgren and his band Utopia.  I have considered that Cassidy with this album wished to end his then current record contract by doing whatever he wanted, but actually Rundgren as a producer couldn’t have been cheap. Basically, what Cassidy and Utopia created was a new wave record much in keeping with other 1980 crossovers that hinted at new wave styles. Punk and New Wave pushed a “back to basics” mindset in music and a few major rock artists took notice. Billy Joel in 1980 had done the edger Glass Houses, Paul McCartney released his sparse McCartney II album, and Linda Ronstadt stepped away from her usual by covering three Elvis Costello songs her album Mad Love. Wasp never dented Billboard’s Top 200 and Cassidy soon moved on and into a successful business career in television. Shaun did have one last stab at music in 1989 dropping the musical adventure of Wasp and releasing instead a slick European only single called "Memory Girl'' before retreating back to the TV biz.  

One way to describe Wasp is to note that any production work by Todd Rundgren often makes an artist sound like Todd himself; though I'll say XTC’s Skylarking didn’t fall into that trap, but Rundgren’s production of the band the Pursuit of Happiness is a case in point of duplicating Rundgren's Utopia. One person’s review of Wasp wished for Utopia to rerecord the record only with Rundgren’s vocals, but actually Shaun’s singing is fine. Reviews noted that for most part the album is a remake of Rundgren’s Faithful album which like Wasp is a mix of covers and originals. 

If any of Shaun Cassidy’s teenybopper fans had hung on long enough to make it to Wasp in 1980, after his main success between 1977-1978, I personally would’ve loved to have seen their reaction to this work. The opening track, a cover of David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel “ might be announcing  a hybrid of bubblegum and new wave. Here Cassidy’s voice is the lower register while a high pitched almost Bee Gees sounding second vocal moves over a steady synthesized beat mixing with a guitar sound much like the original David Bowie version.

Now with Wasp in mind let me bring up the ridiculous idea where we get Justin Bieber to record Radiohead covers, then co-write songs with Elvis Costello, and get Mitch Easter to produce it. Is that a dream or a nightmare? I do find records where popular artists move out of their comfort zones to be very interesting. Sometimes the change is simply a desperate career move or other times it is true art. In recent times teen star Mandy Moore dared record XTC's “Senses Working Overtime" on her album Coverage; she has since widened her range even further. Think about when the Monkees brilliantly poked fun at their own teen stardom in the film Head; Shaun isn’t really mocking himself on Wasp or is he? Once artistic development and progression was once more the fashion, consider how the Beatles went from teenyboppers screaming for "She Loves You" to recording an album like Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For Cassidy perhaps Wasp was progression, but of course he didn't take it any further.

Let me note that Curb Records has done something here that I haven't seen done by a label in this day and age of digital downloads, they released this album as a CD-R .For the money you get a printed cover, CD label ,copyright information and the songwriting credits.