Rachel Sweet “Fool Around”

I don’t remember when we first heard of Rachel Sweet (by “we,” I mean my high school punk rock bandmate and music fan friends). It had to be either Rolling Stone (a review) or just buying this record, since it was on the Stiff label (“If it ain’t Stiff, it ain’t worth a f**k”)—for a while there, you couldn’t go wrong. Anyway, we loved the record. We did our best to find out about her. Was she still in high school?! And from Ohio, where we lived? There were a lot of good bands from the Akron area, of course, but how did a high school girl record a record for Stiff? And with the excellent musicians from Ian Dury’s band (AKA, The Blockheads)? Here, I got sidetracked for a while, as it occurred to me Ian Dury might have put out some records, later, that I never heard. Which led me to one from 1997 (that tragic, black hole of sound CD era) called Mr. Love Pants—fantastic title—and an excellent record, that I’d like to get ahold of.

Anyway, back to Rachel Sweet. The record isn’t exactly punk rock—but it is youthful and high energy, so it might have fallen under that imaginary, euphemistic umbrella, “new wave.” Power Pop was also a term being thrown around. Oddly, there are a few versions of this record, with different songs—I’m not going to attempt to compare the two, but the one I have is maybe later, 1979, the US version—and it’s got a better cover. The other cover is fine—both of them are photos outside, she’s wearing a leather jacket—but entirely different hair and makeup—in this one she looks younger, probably closer to her age. On the back, she looks ever younger, leaning against a pole—and it looks like, I’m not sure, she’s chewing on a piece of straw—who does that? Also, there’s a much younger girl passing behind her—was that set up, or did she just happen to be there, whoever it is—and does she have this record?

It’s a nice album—I still like the sound, the production, her singing, and the songs. Highlights include the Carla Thomas song “B-A-B-Y,” with horns and a lot of echo. A really good Elvis Costello country song. The Mark Middler (don’t remember him) number, “Sad Song.” The Peter and Gordon hit “I Go to Pieces.” And the Dusty Springfield hit “Stay Awhile.” The producer is an Akron musician, Liam Sternberg, who I never found out much about (all those years I lived in the area). He also wrote half the songs on the record, including my favorites, “Who Does Lisa Like?” and “Cuckoo Clock.” And then, my very favorite might be “Pin a Medal on Mary,” written by some guys who, I guess, were contemporary power pop Brits—in the band, The Records—though, I’ve never heard any other version of this song. It’s got a great opening line: “You said you were going to the bathroom, but you were gone for half an hour.” Anyway—fast ones, slow ones, “new wave” songs, retro songs, country, and R&B—no weak songs on this record.

9.29.23