Quarterflash
Quarterflash

Lately, I've really had an itch to review pop-rock albums belonging to the classic mold of the early eighties. The musty album in question represents a slice of my adolescence.

Quarterflash was (at least here in Italy) the classic "one hit wonder" band. Originally from Oregon's countryside, they debuted in 1981 with the single "Harden My Heart," immediately making a splash: no. 3 in the States and TV appearances on various shows.

The reasons are also sentimental. In Italy, in the spring-summer of 1982 (having peeked into the American charts in March), this was one of those earworm songs, and I was constantly hearing it on my cousin's radio and from various jukeboxes during scorching, sunny vacation afternoons, between a soccer match and a gelato break at the kiosk.

What kind of music did they propose? Well, consider that musically they're a sort of "poor man's" Blondie, obviously a bit less "punk," and similar in sound to artists like Pat Benatar and The Motels. Their music definitely leaned towards a light new wave but was very well arranged. The group's distinctive and core sound element is the burning and fiery sax of the frontwoman Rindy Ross. But the solid guitar section by Marv Ross is also noteworthy.

"Harden My Heart," the single that drove the album, has that dated sound as they say in these cases, but it's still splendid at the same time. The sax gives it that soft-rock atmosphere typical of late-seventies, early-eighties... USA, of course.

Of those artists who hit the big time with a well-placed single, I've often been curious to listen to the entire album in sequence. Well, in some cases, the rest of the LP proved to live up to (if not exceed) the expectations set by the single itself. Other times, the exact opposite happened: a catchy single and a flat, disappointing, and clichéd album. In this case, we are instead in a perfect middle ground. The remaining songs aren't dismissible and even include a couple of gems, thus granting the album a substantially successful work certificate.

In conclusion: there are some weak moments like the anonymous "Critical Times" and the innocuously saccharine "Love Should Be So Kind," and let's say that the sound quality of the album hasn't aged particularly well, but "Harden My Heart," "Find Another Fool," and "Try To Make It True" still sound splendid along with "Right Kind Of Love," which, in my opinion, with that seductive sax intro, is the real gem of the album on par with the single. But in general, the remaining tracks hold up well enough, with the exception of the two aforementioned. All in all, a good debut, even if it doesn't scream miracle.

Then after this LP, darkness or almost. The band tried but didn't have enough fuel in the tank to sustain beyond this nice debut. The subsequent albums are generally rather bland and lackluster. Three or four tracks are saved from the following "Take Another Picture" of 1983 and little else from the remaining two concluding LPs.

A big question that's been quite trendy in recent years: Can this music be defined as AOR?

Well, let's say that in the grand melting pot of that "cross-sectional subgenre" known as Adult Oriented Rock, it can fit. So I would definitely say yes. Here, the Hard/Heavy element is less present, but the clean production, the pathos of the vocals, the harmonized vocal choruses, and the typically "American" atmospheres definitely place it in the famous melting pot.

Somewhere between ironic and cryptic is the music video shot at the time, featuring our Rindy Ross in a tight dance hall-style outfit reminiscent of Flashdance and the final demolition of the shack with a bulldozer from inside which she couldn't find her way out.