• AllMyVinyl #94
• Band: The J. Geils Band
• Album Title: Freeze Frame
• Release Date: 26 Oct 1981
• Date purchased: Unknown, likely spring 1982
• Location purchased: Unknown, likely Sam Goody’s.
• Color of vinyl: black
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album on Youtube ]

This is one I remember the music from years gone by, but I don’t remember buying the vinyl in particular.  I obviously did, but have no memory of where it came from.  However, given this was 1981 when it came out, I likely bought it at the neighborhood Sam Goody’s record store.  I pointed that out because the day before I wrote this article, I found out all the remaining Sam Goody’s stores are going out of business.  Been a long time since they were major player, but I know I bought a lot of records there, so I have memories of going through the vinyl racks looking for stuff back in the day.

This was their tenth overall studio album released on 1981.  The first one was in 1970.  I point this out, because for me, I’d never heard of them before the album before this – “Love Stinks”.  I never bought that one, but when this one came out, its two singles were mega hits, so I picked up the album.  My memory says this was one of those “buy the whole album for one or two songs” albums.  That was a thing I did back then.  Beyond those two songs, I don’t recall a ton of the rest of the album.  Not simply by song titles, anyway.   That might change when I go to listen to the thing.

I find it hard to describe J Geils Band as a whole.  Wikipedia describes them thusly..  “The band played R&B-influenced blues rock during the 1970s and soon achieved commercial success before moving toward a more mainstream radio-friendly sound in the early 1980s, which brought the band to its commercial peak.”  Thing is I only knew ’em during the commercial era.  In all this time I never really bothered to go backwards before “Love Stinks”.  If anyone reading this is a fan of the earlier J Geils material, lay some recommendations on me.  I could just plow through it all, but I’d be open to suggestions for where to go specifically from someone who knows them well.

What I remember most about them are the music videos for Centerfold and Freeze Frame.  FF is more of a vague artistic thing, but Centerfold is more geared towards its lyrics.  It’s not explicit at all, but the setting of the video is a mild eyebrow raiser these days.  Talking about one’s girlfriend who appears in a Playboy type magazine – yet it’s set in a school room (NOT college age) and has women dancing around shaking their asses.  Which of course is a staple in rock music videos.  What I don’t remember now is if they had any controversy over that video back in the day.  If it happened, I can’t remember.   As I said above, I also don’t remember a ton about the music on this album beyond the two singles, so most of this will be a new experience (if not technically new, I just don’t remember).

To the songs…

Freeze Frame – This is to me the way albums used to be constructed.  The first song was the first single, and also the title track.  This song was to me this album because of all that.  It’s a pretty straightforward piece of early 80’s pop rock.  Catchy as hell, even if perhaps not the most inventive song musically.  I still find myself singing along with the chorus all these years later.  I also remember the music video thinking “Oh look, a visual to go along with the sound effect in the song”.  I know they’re not the first to do it, but it was the first time I can recall running into that myself, so it sticks with me.  The music video ties into the album cover art a bit, and the picture of the band on the back of the vinyl sleeve in painters’ gear.

Rage in the Cage – This has a different sound.  It’s some sort of horn instrument (I think?) that provides the main “Riff” of the song in a place where you’d normally expect a guitar to do that.  While they came afterwards it reminds me of a sound I’d hear from a band called the Hooters (who I’ll get to later in the series).  It too is catchy, but not as much as Freeze Frame, perhaps.  There’s a bass sound about 3/4 of the way through that’s got a bit of funk to it (to my ears) yet at the same time having an electric guitar solo, so it’s an intersting aural combination. This song was the B-Side to the Centerfold single.  I’d give it a 3.5 on the Deep Purple Podcast scale. ;)

Centerfold – The most well known song and the big single.  I’d wager if you know anything by J Geils Band it’s either “Love Stinks” or “Centerfold”.  Given I was 16 at the time this came out the lyrics about “girlie magazine” and “centerfold” uh, gave me stuff to think about – ha.  I kind of related to some of the lyrics of this (the bits about being shy around girls).  I got that part.  Not the centerfold part – none of my girlfriends ever did THAT.  ha.   Music video was nice to look at obviously.  But the visual tick of Peter Wolf singing “Take your car, yes, we will We’ll take your car and drive it..” while drawing a car on a classroom chalkboard is something that’s stuck with me strongly.  When I mentioned this was the next album in my series to my wife, she remembered Centerfold, but nothing about the video. But that stuck with me – even more than most of the music on this album.  But in 81/82 it was the height of MTV”s power as it was brand new at the time.  I strongly think this album benefited by that.  Had this video not been made, I suspect the album would have gone down differently.   It’s actually catchier than Freeze Frame.  The “Na na na na na” part towards the end imakes you want to get up and sing.

Do You Remember When – This is not as catchy as the songs before it.  The guitar riff here reminds me of a sound I’d heard in Rumours era Fleetwood Mac.  It’s got a beat to it that isn’t the most noticeable, but drives the song forward just the same.  It’s not sung by Peter Wolf and as such has a much different sound to it than the three song that precede it on the album – in fact some of the locals remind me of Peter Green era Fleetwood Mac too.  It’s got a more experimental sound to me once you get to the chorus.  Not quite sure how to describe it beyond that.  I like the track, but it’s hard to pin down why exactly.

Insane, Insane Again – There’s some early 80’s era synthesizers at work which remind me of both Eddie Grant (Electric Avenue) and Thomas Dolby at the same time.  This one is a bit too experimental for me – I didn’t care for this track a ton.  It doesn’t suck, but it doesn’t get me going, either.

Flamethrower – This has both a bit of the pop rock sound and the experimental sound fused together.  In reading about the album, I read where some viewed it as a return to their early style of songs.  That has no meaning to me since their early material is a total unknown.  But it definitely sounds different than the rest of the album.  This apparently charted on the “Black/soul” (not my term) singles chart back in the day.  It’s got a small tinge of disco influence in it.  It’s definitely got a wide variety of styles all mashed together into one song.  Quite like it for its differences and funky sound (which I’ve seen referred as “boogie”).  This was the B-Side to the “Freeze Frame” single.

River Blindness – The funkiness continues in this track.  That’s about the depth of what I want to say here.  It’s OK.  Just kind of there.  The guitar work that runs in the background of the song towards the end is quite good.

Angel in Blue –  This starts off with an acoustic guitar sound – something not heard of on this album to this point.  In fact, the first note of the song sounds like something I heard Brian May play in the Flash Gordon soundtrack. :)  I’m finding references all over this album today!  This is a slower paced song – not slow at all, but definitely a slower pace than everything else on the album.  None of the funk.  It’s a nice change of pace song.  Luther Vandross appears as a backup singer on this.  Overall, it kind of reminds me of something Bruce Springsteen would do.  It was the third and final single from the album (with River Blindness as a B-Side).

Piss on the Wall – Well that’s a title that makes you wonder what the heck it’s really about.  I think the song is chosen to get your attention – it appears to be about the general absurdity of life.  Musically it’s OK.  It’s got a great sax solo in the middle.  Has a nice shuffle beat which again is something different and pleasing.   They do sing the song title in the song.  There’s a part in the chorus that’s sung here that reminds me of the old Beach Boys song “Barbara Ann” a bit.  Overall a good song, but I could easily see this being not as accessible to some.

Overall, this album has a LOT more variety than I remember.  After listening to it, I have to say I remember nearly nothing except Centerfold & Freeze Frame, the two big pop singles from this album.  The album is far more than that and contains a shit ton of musical experimentation I’ve COMPLETELY forgotten about.  Due to that, I’m 100% convinced I bought this solely for the two singles and that was it.  The other stuff on here is good, but if you’re one of those people that likes all the songs on an album to have the same general vibe, then you won’t care for this one.  Experimentation seems to be the word of the day here.  There’s a ton of different styles.  Some I liked, some I didn’t, but that’s gonna happen on an album where your music doesn’t all sound cut from the same slice of pie.

After this album, Peter Wolf left the band and they had one more album without him.  I also  have that one on vinyl, but I’ll get to it later, as that one starts with the letter “Y”.  This one starts with an “F”.  :)

I never saw them live because they broke up for good after the album after this one, and had just sporadic reunions over the years, so the live version of this band is a 100% unknown to me.  Oh well.  Won’t be the only band I liked music from that I never saw live (hello Led Zeppelin!)