"i've been living without you"
If you hang on to something long enough, it’ll be new again. Fashion inevitably returns to a former state, adapts it some, adds in some new components, and is big again. As we’ve seen over the last few years, music is no different— at least the music getting all the press and front covers. Logically, we’ve just moved through the seventies and it’s time we began the eighties. Enter Stellastarr*.
When I caught their act at Don Hill’s, their early- to mid-eighties influence was clear. There are elements of the Smiths, Mission U.K., Blondie, Modern English, some Cure, some New Order, Echo and the Bunnymen, and even A-ha present in their songs. But while their music is obviously new wave-y, it contains some nicely done modern additions; it sounds familiar, but feels original. That keyboard sound we’re all familiar with from the English invasion of the eighties is there, and so are some more contemporary guitar chords. Vocalist/guitarist Shawn Christensen is an energetic, emotive singer, with a quick delivery and a voice that combines the cadences of David Byrne and Devo with British new-wave falsettos.
While only a demo, the one Stellastar* CD I have sounds well produced. It lacks the absorbing sound of the live show, but it’s still a good representation of what the group can do. "Somewhere Across Forever" is the kind of catchy tune you’d expect to hear in Some Kind of Wonderful. "Homeland" opens sounding like the Cure, then shifts into an A-ha-style ghostly-melodic tune and back again. Go-Go’s and Blondie influences figure into "No Weather," a quick-paced guitar-driven song with those wonderful backing "ba-ba-ba" vocals. "My Coco," with its thundering drums, could pass for Big Country.
There is passion in Stellastarr*’s music. It transports you back to a time when music was changing very rapidly and you knew something was happening (either good or bad, depending on your viewpoint). The question we all have to ask ourselves about the new retro-drive in music is: Where do you draw the line? Where does a band do something original and where are they simply a parody, a cover band, or plainly stealing?
After the passage of so much time since the seventies or early eighties, this retro-music sounds new again, and we’re reminded of the feeling we had first listening to it. Stellastarr* is not a carbon-copy, but they do borrow liberally from bands of the past. Are they reviving a music genre? Yes. Are they contributing something new to it? Maybe. Part of me would rather hear the original bands. Part of me is glad to have the music around again, performed by musicians who obviously love it and put on a great show.