THE ALARM
Music Television (Twenty First Century)
Welsh pop-rockers The Alarm’s latest offering Music Television kicks off with a version of Dire Straits’ Money For Nothing, with slightly altered lyrics, and this sets the tone for the rest of the album, which is hit and miss. The Alarm cover songs by artists such as Gene Loves Jezebel, INXS and Belouis Some, and surprisingly (or not) it’s the songs I hadn’t heard before that worked well, whereas hits such as Michael Jackson’s Beat It stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.
Alarm frontman Mike Peters’ voice just isn’t suitable for all of Music Television‘s 11 songs – tagged as “a technicolor homage to the video explosion of the 1980s through a reinterpreted collection” – and one has to wonder why he didn’t make better choices. That said, he does a good job of Modern English’s Screaming For Emmalene and The Blow Monkeys’ Live Today Love Tomorrow – but the rest will take some getting used to.
words LYNDA NASH
