Wednesday, February 21, 2018

WAS's Awesome New Wave Song of the Week #17: The Plimsouls - A Million Miles Away


The Plimsouls came out of Los Angeles, California in 1978 and quickly became a staple on the LA live music club scene.  Their music was a mix of my favorites: power pop with rock and new wave mixed in, and a strong sense of urgency!  Their first EP Zero Hour and their self-titled first album got play on west coast new wave radio station (and home of Richard Blade) KROQ-FM.  

By 1983 The Plimsouls were on fire … they released their second album, the superb Everywhere At Once - and their best song “A Million Miles Away” was released as a single - and it was featured on the the soundtrack of the Nicholas Cage movie Valley Girl.  Although conceived as a low-budget cheesy teen flick, Valley Girl became a minor hit which got the band some decent exposure as they had several songs in it. And the soundtrack of "Valley Girl" became an underground sensation - it was a literal encyclopedia of awesome new wave songs and bands. But the infamous “contractual issues” problem reared it’s ugly head and an official release of the soundtrack on CD was held up for over a decade until the great people at Rhino Records released not one - but two! - CDs of songs from the soundtrack in 1994.  

Even though the release was more than a decade late and well past the new wave heyday of the 1980s, the soundtrack still made the Billboard Top 200!  But by that time the Plimsouls were no more.  They broke up in the mid-80s, their best album serving as their swan song. What could have been…  They resurfaced in the late 1990s and made a reunion album but alas the magic had faded and it was not that great.

-WAS

BONUS: Another great Plimsouls song off Everywhere At Once and the Valley Girl soundtrack is "Oldest Story in the World". 



2 comments:

  1. Next time someone asks me what post-punk music sounds like, I'm playing them this.

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  2. Attitude, jangly guitars, sunglasses, shaggy hair.... yup, its post-punk !

    ReplyDelete