Album: Wha’ppen?
Year: 1981
So as often happens when you follow an energetic, epochal debut album with a slower, more experimental record, the people who loved that debut album tend to dismiss the follow-up. And so it went with me and The Beat’s second album, 1981’s Wha’ppen?
Which — I should point out — I bought on Christmas Day, 1982 (at Tower Records, natch!) a whole two months after I bought I Just Can’t Stop It. But it was a pretty big two months, as KFSR had finally gone on the air, and I’d also started the first real relationship of my adult life, so perhaps I wasn’t prepared to give Wha’appen? the attention it deserved.
So I liked side one, didn’t care for side two, and am guessing that the entire record needs me to try it out again 30+ years later.
That said, I instantly loved the opening track, the etherial reggae love song “Doors of Your Heart.”
Every story has to be about something I suppose
This one says
I lose my head
As the feeling starts to grow you know?
Dave Wakeling sounds cautiously optimistic for once, as he navigates a straight love song for once.
With the rest of the band “ooohing” behind the verses and joining in on the “Bom bom / Bom bom” at the end of the chorus, “Doors of Your Heart felt very much like the “unity rocker” Ranking Roger declared it as at the beginning of his very long toasting section in the middle.
Official (muddy-sounding) video for “Doors of Your Heart”
“Doors of Your Heart” performed live at the US Festival, 1982