Album: Blow Your Cool!
Year: 1987
Here’s a rule: if you’re going to have the temerity to name a song “Party Machine,” then it damn well better sound like one hell of a party.
Luckily, that’s a rule that the Hoodoo Gurus knew quite well, and so “Party Machine” ends Blow Your Cool! with an utterly raucous blast of full-on good timey energy.
Kicking off with nothing but Mark Kingsmill’s overly reverbed kick and snare drums, “Party Machine” pretty much starts in fourth gear, with Dave Faulkner pointing out that it’s Friday night and he’s getting to rev up the Gurumobile.
Because of course the Hoodoo Gurus have a Gurumobile. How else are they going to get the The Bangles to the party and sing backing vocals.
Oh, and just for the sheer fuck of it, they lift the guitar riff from “Gloria” for the chorus, because did I mention that this was a party, where everybody is singing and clapping their hands and somebody is playing bongos and somebody else is blowing a harmonica, because why not!
In the end, there’s a rave-up, as Faulkner and the rest of the Gurus and the Bangles (and I think half of the Dream Syndicate) are all screaming back and forth with each other.
I say, where have you been?
Where have you been?
(ON THE PARTY MACHINE!)
(ON THE PARTY MACHINE!)
I say, what did you see?
What did you see?
(EVERYTHING!) Uh-huh
(EVERYTHING!) Uh-huh
(EVERYTHING!) Oh yeah
(EVERYTHING!) Say more
(EVERYTHING!) And more
(EVERYTHING!) And more
(EVERYTHING!) And more
(EVERYTHING!) And more
And at this point the song just starts speeding out of control until it finally crashes into a wall. On one hand, of course, it’s all very silly, but on a much more important hand it reminds me that some of the best times I’ll ever have with music involve just pure and utter release, and “Party Machine” absolutely invokes that.
“Party Machine”
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