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Sold Out by The Fools

Sold Out

Recording Date: 1/1980

Tracks: 9

Genre/Styles:
New Wave, Punk/New Wave, Aussie Rock

Album Tracks (9)

Song Title
Length
1.
Night Out
00:00
2.
Fine With Me
00:00
3.
Sold Out
00:00
4.
Sad Story
00:00
5.
Mutual of Omaha
00:00
6.
It's a Night for Beautiful Girls
00:00
7.
Spent the Rent
00:00
8.
Easy for You
00:00
9.
I Won't Grow Up
00:00

What the Critics Say

The major-label debut of vocalist Mike Gerard, guitarists Richie Bartlett and Stacy Pedrick, drummer Chris Pedrick, and bassist Doug Forman, collectively the Fools, stands as a concise and well recorded musical statement by an important Boston group. Produced by Pete Solley, the band escaped the curse of New England groups suffering inferior recordings in major studios. "Spent the Rent" is a powerful rocker, while "Easy for You" is a tender ballad and shows what a pro bunch these musicians posing as jokers were. "It's a Night for Beautiful Girls" was a smash in the New England region but made no real dent nationally, and, for some strange reason, EMI-America put the song that established them in their hometown, a parody of the Talking Heads' "Psycho Killer," entitled "Psycho Chicken," as a 45 rpm inside the album jacket, but not included on the 12" vinyl. Produced by guitarist Richard Bartlett, who would go on to join Ben Orr's solo project, and engineered by Luna producer Jay Mandel, "Psycho Chicken" was so much of what this band was about. The original four-track basement recording got tons of local airplay in and around the Boston area, and was as much a hit as "It's a Night for Beautiful Girls." The 45 rpm is on white vinyl, saying that either their management or the record label knew the importance of this tongue-in-cheek side of the group. A cover of the Leigh/Charlap classic "I Won't Grow Up" just doesn't have the sparkle that David Byrne's underground hit generated as re-written with Forman and Girard, the two main songwriters for the Fools. "Night Out" begins the album with a burst of three minute pop followed by "Fine With Me," "Don't Tell Me," and the title track, "Sold Out" -- all well-crafted pop songs with Beatles guitar lines and enough jangle to qualify them for underground pop rockers, somewhere between the radio friendliness of the Raspberries with the seriousness Badfinger brought to their work. While their contemporaries Human Sexual Response stretched the boundaries, the Fools tempered the joking and sought respectability. Years later, Sold Out stands as a very respectable and very important debut album by a band that was able to play the local circuit for more than a decade after its release as one of the major draws in New England. Not a bad accomplishment, and an indication that they deserved national recognition and could have entertained the masses had EMI kept working their discs beyond the second release, Heavy Mental, which followed in 1981. Just listen to the blend of American music and British pop that is "Sad Story," the only song clocking in over four minutes, and a beautiful one at that. ~ Joe Viglione, Rovi

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