ARTIST: The Toms
TITLE: The Toms
YEAR RELEASED: 1979
CHART ACTION: None
SINGLES: None
OTHER SONGS YOU MAY KNOW: Only if you had power pop comps.
LINEUP: Tom Marolda
WHAT’S IT ALL ABOUT: DIY power-popper writes catchy songs and plays everything himself.
SOME WORDS, PHRASES AND CLAUSES ABOUT THIS RECORD: Power pop fans love nothing more than to seek out and find obscurities of the genre. This definitely classifies as one of those. Put out by a DIY one-man band, this record has (in its initial form) 12 low-fi power pop gems. In the 90’s, he’d have been as revered as Guided By Voices, except Marolda actually writes full length songs.
For me, the key track is “Hook” – “We beat this hook line / over and over / until you got it / memorized”. That’s a song about hooks, you know the one line that makes you remember the song. Admit it, you know that the only reason you liked “Fancy” was Charli XCX’s sung hook – not the rap.
The low-fi makes this a bit muddied, which is a shame. Still, power pop fans should seek this out.
NOTES & MINUTAE: He released three more albums in the 80’s that haven’t been re-issued, and two more since the turn of the century
IS THERE A DELUXE VERSION: Yes, a deluxe and a super-deluxe version.
GRADE: B+: Engaging songs with some highlights, and some mediocre sound quality.