It took five entries, but I’ve finally reached a band that I have no personal knowledge of. Whereas I could recall The Vapors or Bow Wow Wow as radio staples, there isn’t really anything that immediately came to mind when The Soft Boys came up. I didn’t even know what they sounded like and, given that New Wave has been unhelpfully diverse, I couldn’t even predict what that would be. Reading on Wikipedia, there was a suggestion that they inspired Neo-Psychedelia: a territory that I haven’t even explored yet. Given that the record has been said to have influenced bands like R.E.M., I wasn’t entirely convinced that this was going to be a candidate for my new favorite band.
For what it’s worth, I am aware of what The Soft Boys did after they broke up. They only released two albums before breaking up in 1981. On one side there was Kimberley Rew who would go on to create Katrina and the Waves of “Walking on Sunshine” fame. The other was Robyn Hitchcock, who has had a fairly successful solo career working with just about everyone.
As a result, The Soft Boys come across as one of those great urban legends, that blink and you’ll miss it sensation that wasn’t around long but left a permanent impression. I think of bands like Joy Division, who were met with an unfortunate end, leaving many to wonder where their career could’ve gone had they lasted longer. But, given that they didn’t make what they have all the more impressive. Sure, they reunited for a brief period in 2001, but 1980 was their glory days when they released “Underwater Moonlight” and established themselves as one of the greatest bands in obscurity. Whereas most bands covered on Make It New have the benefit of radio play or that one hit you’ll recognize after 30 seconds, The Soft Boys don’t have that. Even by the genre’s standards, they were way too artsy.
It is really difficult to compare them to any of the bands I’ve covered so far. Even bands that transcended genres like The English Beat had a penchant for pop hooks that made them accessible. When I listen to The Soft Boys, I do not hear what was essentially a poppier version of rock, an antithesis to the stadium rock of Led Zeppelin or Pink Floyd. If anything, they were paying homage to bands like The Rolling Stone and The Beatles, albeit with something weirder going on. Their only true connection to New Wave is that at times they come across as the gawky outsider, observing the world with an abstract lens, eager to find a connection to somebody with their deep, brooding voices and instrumentation that at times felt submerged.
Their work is much more patient, atmospheric, desiring to create a world inherent to only them. It’s the type of thing that makes them exciting when listening, finding this sound that is out of place despite having so many small connections. To put them on headphones would be to hallucinate some vivid imagery, take in the sights as you wait for the vocals to kick in. To listen to the four minute title track especially is to witness something so shamefully singular, creating this underwater world that is at times haunting, others romantic, and capturing the sensation that it’s the most beautiful thing in the world to them. As outsiders, they welcome you to see their underwater moonlight in all of its glory.
The album has a lot of fun components going for it. As mentioned, they do give off the sense that deep down they are an earnest band, eagerly searching for love but having trouble communicating it. That’s why the opener “I Wanna Destroy You” is so much fun, alarmingly catching the listener off-guard as they prepare to enter this world. Again, there are more ties to 60s rock than anything else, and it becomes abundantly clear so quickly how this will be subverted. It’s a view of the past that can’t help but challenge expectations. If those garage bands made art rock, this is what it would sound like. It’s not quite hooky enough to make for a memorable New Wave, but it surely demands your attention.
Going through the tracks, they slightly vary in tone. “Positive Vibrations” incorporates a surf guitar while “I Got the Hots” features more of a blues riff. So much of the album feels rich with experimentation, doing everything to find a unique sound. At times it feels haunting, like you’re experiencing a macabre sense of romance. There is a longing, an almost gothic need to find purpose in this world. It shines through especially in their lyrics, which pulsate with a lust that compliments their sound. On “I Got the Hots,” he sings:
Here I amLooking out on a crystal worldFloating currents of human eyesBaking land under creamy skies
The song also features shout-outs to dentures, tides of filth, and lumps of steaks. With such a vivid selection of words, The Soft Boys create a creepy understanding of the world that is fun to dance to in a jerky fashion. Given that the next song, “Insanely Jealous of You” features a riff, not unlike something that U2’s The Edge would come up with circa “Joshua Tree,” it makes sense how this band quietly influenced everyone from the all-out deranged to those who took their sound and made something more viable, accessible to an often mainstream audience.
Despite not producing any significant single or chart success, it’s amazing how good the album ultimately is. Even on songs like “Old Pervert” with a guitar line that sounds like it’s being strangled, there is some innovation that draws the listener in, wanting to know more. There is a playfulness to embracing such esoteric concepts, desiring a new world order. By the penultimate song “Queen of Eyes,” they once again are more reminiscent of someone like The Kinks or The Byrds than their peers. In that respect, they are one of the most New Wave bands. Even the fact that they didn’t even make it through the early 80s is strangely perfect.
I’m especially a fan of their instrumental track “You’ll Have to Go Sideways,” which sounds exactly like you’d think. By this point in the album, which has mixed macabre with surf guitars and off-kilter horns, they create their most atmospheric piece. A steady beat feels like submersion as the guitars feel like a brain being twisted, the vivid imagery implied by these sounds is incredible, making you imagine a surreal sci-fi fantasy that is so horrifying but you can’t help but smile. Given that they will return to the underwater theme for “Underwater Moonlight,” it feels like the grounds for a concept album that never was.
That is the big conundrum. Would The Soft Boys have been the biggest band in the world if they continued producing albums? If nothing else, they wouldn’t be boring. To look at Hitchcock and Katrina and the Waves’ success after, there’s clearly a clashing of personalities that wanted to branch out and make great pop albums. It is likely that they would’ve continued to be a relevant band, tangential to Oingo Boingo in that even their worst work was reflective of artists unrestrained. They could comment on society, embracing clashing tones and produce something profound. While I don’t love “Underwater Moonlight,” there’s no denying that it is immersive, deserving of attention that is reflective of an album lost in time. It is so nostalgic while reflecting the future of garage rock.
With just 10 songs, they have produced an unwieldy album that has taken me by surprise. It’s further proof that just as I think that I have an idea of what New Wave music sounds like, I have so much to learn if I ever want to reach a convenient consensus. What is the connective tissue between something like this and The Vapors? To be completely honest, I think there is something more esoteric in the lyrical substance of a New Wave band. Even Bow Wow Wow, who was just a parody of girl groups, had this subversiveness that required some effort to understand. They needed their own hook, and The Soft Boys were about making trippy love songs that could also qualify as completely baffling and deeply disturbing. The fact that “Tonight” sounds like a manic depressive Rolling Stones song is quite a fun detail.
I’m sure that I haven’t done the band justice. It’s difficult to fully process the impact this album has. Whereas most bands I have a passing familiarity with going in, The Soft Boys lack any place in history for me. I can tell you more about Katrina and the Waves than I can what “Underwater Moonlight” did to the music scene. I’m confident that it in some ways informed bigger bands beyond R.E.M., that they inspired bands who were more orchestral and experimented with the technique. Maybe bands like New Order owe some debt to them. It’s hard to say. Still, when I hear them, I hear a sound that is fresh, still being imitated by the off-kilter artists that pop up on the radio every few years.
This was a great surprise for sure. I do enjoy it when music so openly challenges the idea of what a song can do. Sure, this isn’t Frank Zappa or Captain Beefheart levels of crazy, but it still paints a perfect alternative to what New Wave music can achieve. I’m confident that it will only get weirder, finding more reason to challenge the definition of a Top 40 hit. For now, I’m a bit in awe of what The Soft Boys could do with such limited time. That’s the power of artists so in control of their image that they didn’t need a decade to make their masterpiece. They just needed two years to prove what the right minds clashing together could do.
Up Next: The Buggles – “The Age of Plastic” (1980)
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