All Over the Place

As a longstanding Bangles fan, I bought this album soon after its release in 1984 and it still remains a favourite because it captures them in their early stages, belting out their trademark garage rock with psychedelic overtones.

After this release their career took a more polished road towards mainstream stardom, eventual implosion and later reincarnation, but at this stage, their first full length album, they were rough, ready and compelling.

The first batch of five songs (side 1 on the original vinyl) is as upbeat as they have ever been, starting with the sing-a-long `Hero Takes a Fall' and ending with the shimmering `Dover Beach' where their steely guitars clash and grind against a stately rhythm. I remember seeing them live around this time and they played this song twice to rapturous applause.

The remainder is more mellow and includes Kimberley Rew's `Going Down to Liverpool' (the video of which featured Leonard Nimoy), but the energy levels never drop.

The recognisable hits `Manic Monday' and `Eternal Flame' would follow but this album showcases a young and hungry Bangles and highlights their mature songwriting and more than competent playing at a time when they had little recognition. A must for all Bangles fans and anyone else who like their rock a bit rough around the edges.

I'm a Bangles fanatic and collector, so it comes as no surprise that I award this album 5 stars. The songs are totally brilliant! But what I really want to talk about is the various issues of this album I own. Firstly, this Cherry Pop re-issue has not been remastered. I've compared it to the original Columbia CD issued during the 80's and they are both identical in every way. Now this is where things take a strange turn: I'm so glad they haven't remastered this album for the UK market. I own the Japanese Columbia remaster and American Wounded Bird remaster, they both came out about the same time. The American and Japanese remasters are a total assault on your ear drums and are totally unlistenable through headphones, in fact it's painful. All Over The Place was originally mastered loud and at high frequency on the first CD issue anyway, it certainly didn't need pumping up anymore. Thankfully Cherry Pop have swiped the original master, put in some nice sleeve notes and the original B side to Hero Takes A Fall as a bonus track. So then, this is the one to own on CD. However, none of the CD issues of this album have ever used the vinyl mix. The correct mix! Time to dig out your record player. Crikey, being a Bangles fanatic is so complicated.

This rough and ready debut of brilliant workmanship confirms the 80s as the only decade to consistently uncover talented females-but unusally, American ones too. This charming collection of commercial rockers is offset by four diferent voices (Michael Steel is not much in vocal evidence on this album as she had just joined but her dark, smokey songs would soon serve as an important counterpoint to the more straightforward 'love' approach of the others.

Though the beauty and full maturity of the later albums, noticeably their absolute masterpiece 'Everything' from 1988 is not really apparent on anything apart from 'Dover Beach', that's not to criticise. The romance that women love to staurate their albums with (see virtually every woman singer/group from 1990 onwards) is delightfully absent here on this 'get out of my face' collection. Even so, the album's top charmer 'James' (criminally ignored for a single release) does hint that Susanna can't quite get that heartbreaker out of her mind just yet. Other songs like 'All About You', 'He's Got A Secret', 'Silent Treatment' and 'Restless' either take apart in great rocky style the person who's using them, or is their message to a person being used. Ridiculously and unfairly (well it was the 80s and women singers barely mattered to the bloodsucking labels) only two singles were released, the opener 'Hero Takes A Fall'-which started the cool 'no-romance here' blueprint and the breezy, chiming 'Going Down To Liverpool'-but so many others could have been-most notably 'James' and 'Dover Beach'. Especially weird as from all albums on, the new rule seemed to be if Susanna sung it, release it! Bloody male record execs in the 80s!

As with that other great female rocker Kim Wilde, this debut matches her own and was no doubt an inspiration for the few female rockers able to follow the blueprint properly like Voice Of The Beehive, with weaker acts like Primitives and the trashy Transvision Vamp. One of the best debuts by a female act ever. Get it! High time all their stuff was remastered.