The A's: A Woman's Got the Power

The A's: A Woman's Got the Power

1981

Arista Records

Track Listing: 1. A Woman's Got the Power  2. Electricity  3. Heart Of America  4. How Do You Live  5. When The Rebel Comes Home  6. Johnny Silent  7. Little Mistakes  8. Working Man  9. I Pretend She's You  10. Insomnia



Once I heard "C.I.A" the hunt was immediately on for any and all A's albums but unfortunately they didn't seem to pop up very often...Then one day at Eastside records...Boom...There was a copy of some album called "A Woman's Got the Power" by the A's with a girl drinking milk on the cover...Turns out it's the band's second album, released in '81 (still keeping my eyes open for the first full-length)...

Once I got home, cracked a beer and threw it on the turntable my immediate reaction was, "huh?" The opening title track was some sort of soft, soulful 80's pop...Think ABC or maybe "Avalon"-era Roxy music...Some guy with  a deep voice crooning over a suave, silky backing...Was this the same band? But in the second verse Richard Bush's vocals take on their usual higher, strident quality and it became recognizable to me...

But the title track turns out to be an exception and isn't indicative of the rest of the album at all (although the disco-ish "How Do You Live" might be some sort of close relative)...The remainder of "A Woman's Got the Power" mostly consists of the band's usual jittery, slick power-pop/new-wave sound, although a lot of  Side One feels slightly more controlled and relaxed than anything on the self-titled 10-inch...But the energy isn't missed too much when you have solidly crafted pop tracks like "Electricity" up your sleeve..."The Heart of America" kind of reminds me of a truck commercial or something...There's a sax-y Huey Lewis quality to it, but as the lyrics get more and more cynical it really starts appealing to me...

Side Two definitely picks up the pace with high impact moments like "Working Man" and " I Pretend She's You" (which might just be the album's  poppiest track)  which move along at a pretty brisk clip...And the closing track "Insomnia" just flat-ass rules...A mix of horror music organ and 60's garage rock delivered at top-speed...Damn..If this was just an EP that only consisted of "Electricity" and the entirety of Side Two, it might rank as one of the strongest power-pop statements ever made...Instead, it's one of those odd albums you might enjoy more by playing Side Two first...

(here...check out "I Pretend She's You")

I still have zero idea why this band didn't rule 80's radio...Their instrumentation was beyond most of the other groups in the power pop scene and they had that magic mix of bombast and theatricality that always sounds great blasting through car speakers...As it stands, you can't even buy their albums on damn CD... A shame, these guys deserve better...

Here's "Insomnia" by the A's...