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From Wikipedia
Dead Man's Party is the fourth album by Oingo Boingo, released in 1985. It is considered by some to be their breakthrough, due to the inclusion of songs from this album in two movies. The title track was used in the film Back to School (wherein Boingo performs the song at a party), and includes the song "Weird Science" which was written for the John Hughes film of the same name.
The album has since been certified Gold by the RIAA.
In a fit of blind folly, the All-Music Guide gave this album four and a half stars, then proceeded to rave about it some more in the despicably short and lameass review. Boo! Without a doubt, this is Oingo Boingo's biggest stinker so far.
Mm, well, maybe I just don't get something. Some people claim that with this album, the Boingos got more "mature" and "serious", dropping the goofy 'juvenile' kitsch of the previous three records and concentrating on more profound lyrical issues and less absurdist melodies. Whatever. I would rather join the group of people that claim that with this album, the Boingos simply sold out, pure and simple. Wanna take a guess why several of the songs off the album were big hits, and actually made the Oingos almost a household name for some time? The answer's right before you baby. This sounds more like a Duran Duran record than an Oingo Boingo record. Tricky time signature changes? Gone. Spooky, off-setting weirdness? Nadah nadeeh. Elfman's unnerving vocal tricks? Replaced by a normal smooth delivery that's not bound to offset one sensitive soul.
In the place of all that, you get yourself a bunch of simple, generic synth-pop that certainly follows the Simon LeBon pattern - focus all your attention on the chorus, toss in a half-interesting riff now and then and you got yourself a formula that won't theoretically run dry for millions of years. Now granted, the actual songs on the album are okay. There's certainly enough creativity in the proceedings, and Elfman wouldn't be Elfman if he hadn't put his brass section and his keyboard player to good use. It's just that almost every single song yields the impression of somebody lightly tapping Danny over the shoulder and saying, 'hey man, you can work chart wonders with your band, whatcher doing out there wasting time on that sarcastic post-modernistic idiocy? We could be making big bucks with 'em horns here! You got a gift, man!'. And that's how it goes.
It's funny that the only song that recalls the classic Oingo Boingo of old on here is tacked on at the very end - yup, that would be 'Weird Science', the long goofy Frankenstein-epic which betrays all the excellent trademarks of the band. Funky, chuggin', with terrific percussion and bass, synth effects to boot, Danny switching from "menacing" in the verses to "screaching" in the chorus, that's all very well. It actually rocks better than all the other so-called "rockers" on the record. And it was also released as a single, but I betcha anythin' you'd hear it less on the radio than 'Just Another Day'.
Too bad I ain't in a supah-negative mood, or I'd bash the other eight songs to chunks. I won't do that, because once you've acknowledged the fact that Danny Elfman is a gifted composer, you'll have to come to terms with the fact that even when he puts his gift to absolute shit use, it's still a gift. Yeah, I mean, the chorus to 'Just Another Day' is strong, isn't it? Definitely so. But what's up with the general mood? A serious song with no tongue-in-cheek aura around it? Elfman exorcising his paranoia? 'There's razors in my bed that come out late at night'? Sorry, no dice, friend. Once a clown par excellence, always a clown par excellence, and I won't be taking this bullshit from Danny any more than I'd be taking it from Simon LeBon. There's not a teeny-weeny ounce of sincerity that comes across to me from that delivery. It just sounds like a probe for top 10 material.
Same with the title track. Is it bad? For heavens no. Look for the grimey bassline. Look how the ringing guitars ascend and descend after each sung line. Look how they get caught up by the brass section in all the appropriate places. But does it have any classic Oingo Boingo charm? This is where you get fokked, brothers and sisters. It's not enough to merely get a hook inside your song, you should make sure this hook is a strong one, drawing some kind of emotional response from the listener. I remain untouched by Danny's newly found seriousness. Absolutely.
Musically, the best song on here after 'Weird Science' is probably 'No One Lives Forever', with its Slavic brass lines and Eastern guitar flourishes and all the weird synth chuckling and tinkling and all the heavy guitar-scrapin' that takes place in between. I guess that one also has the old Boingo spirit living inside it, after all. And it's the only two songs that actually left an impression in me upon the third listen. Seriously now, I don't wanna pour shit on a good composer, so I'm not giving it a piss-poor rating, but really, I don't know why I should ever listen to it in the first place - if I wanna listen to this kind of music, I'll throw on Duran Duran's Rio instead. At least that one isn't such an enormous disappointment when you put it in context.