Bangles, All Over the Place: A Retro Review

Raise your hand if your life was forever changed at a public library in your tween years!

I would be one of them.  Or if I'm the only one, then so be it.  What changed me?  A copy of this album:



I had seen it before but never gave much thought to it, never noticed it.  Then, one day, I realized...it was the Bangles. At the time, they were invading the pop music scene with one hit after another from their sophomore album, Different Light, which I did have and still have (somewhere).  Of course, at the time, I didn't know they had made an album before that.

I checked it out, not once, but hundreds of times.  When I brought it home with me, I played it so many times in each three-week period.  It was painful for me to return it and wait for it to go back into circulation, so I can check it out again. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said I played it more than Different Light.  It's a wonder the library staff didn't simply give it to me.

I was considered strange for listening to this rather than the other hits at the time by this band, made up of four talented women, who are that to this day.  While everyone else was singing the lament of the first day of the work week, or doing that simple but cheesy dance with supposed origins from a northern African country, I was engrossed in "Live," "Dover Beach," "Restless," and "He's Got a Secret."

I'm not sure about this, but somehow All Over the Place got overlooked.  Back in 1984, I don't recall hearing any of these songs, or of the Bangles.  It's a shame.  Why?  Let me put it like this:  If you knew nothing about music, had no musical talent about you whatsoever, and you heard this album, you wouldn't have a hard time finding the unhindered talent and musicianship Susanna, Vicky, Michael, and Debbie have in every one of the songs on this album.  It's on this album especially I am amazed at their complementary vocal harmonies, and music that emulates well the melodies from the mid to late sixties.

Here I am thirty years since the first time I heard this sadly overlooked album, and I am still entranced and inspired by it.

It's the musical finger food I have spent a lifetime listening to.