Editor’s Note: Our new, recurring “Albumism Recommends” series aims to shine a bright light on our favorite albums of the past, with an emphasis on the records that arguably never achieved the widespread or sustained attention they rightfully deserve. As you’ll see below, unlike our longer-form feature articles, we’ve intentionally kept the accompanying commentary to a minimum, so as to allow the great music to speak for itself.
We hope that you enjoy discovering (or rediscovering) these musical treasures and if you like what you hear, we encourage you to spread the good word far and wide so that others can experience these under-the-radar classics as well.
ARTIST: Redd Kross
TITLE: Third Eye
RELEASED: September 14, 1990
LABEL: Atlantic
NOTABLE TRACKS: “Annie’s Gone” | “Elephant Flares” | “Shonen Knife”
I found this album in a thrift store at some point in the early-ish ’90s—maybe ’93 or ’94. I bought it because 1) it was cheap, 2) I had vaguely heard of Redd Kross, and 3) it looked weird. At that point, however, it probably didn’t seem all that strange in the sea of quirky indie rock/grunge/alternative that had taken over the culture. But as Pop Matters points out, when you consider that this album was released in 1990 on a major label (Atlantic) before Nirvana’s Nevermind and the subsequent major label feeding frenzy on all things “alternative,” it’s a very strange album.
1990 was not a vibrant time for alternative music—1990 was Paula Abdul and Guns N’ Roses and Debbie Gibson. At that point, too, the ’70s were still considered deeply uncool, and there’s nothing that isn’t brazenly ’70s about Third Eye’s cover art. Same goes for the album’s sonic content: here were brothers Steve and Jeff McDonald, in all their longhaired, bellbottomed glory, harkening back to Cheap Trick and doing vocal impersonations of KISS’ Paul Stanley (on a song called “1976”). Weirder still, before this bizarre album, Redd Kross had been a hardcore punk band (I’m pretty sure that’s how I had heard of them in the first place). All that said, it’s safe to proclaim that Third Eye, Redd Kross’ only album on Atlantic Records, will always be slightly bizarre and out of step—and that’s what makes it so damn charming.
Third Eye is a mostly ’70s-influenced pop album tinged with hair metal and studded with eclectic references. There’s a banger called “Shonen Knife” about the all-women Japanese punk band, while “Debbie and Kim” pays simultaneous tribute to Debbie Gibson and Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. There’s also a love song to Zira from Planet of the Apes (“Zira (Call Out My Name)”). “Annie’s Gone” is a pop-rock head bopper with slinky vocals and well-placed tambourine about the darkness that descends at the end of a romance. “Bubblegum Factory” is kitschy bubblegum-pop about, yes, a bubblegum factory where records play. “Love Is Not Love” features chill harmonies and harkens back to ’70s love ballads. And “Elephant Flares” pays ode to checking out chicks in halter tops and elephant flares, while driving around in your custom bitchin’ Trans Am.
Although their “alternativeness” was before its time, Redd Kross weren’t performatively weird in a vacuum. They opened for Sonic Youth on the band’s Goo tour, Kurt Cobain was a fan (he included Redd Kross on mixtapes he made for friends), and the naked-yet-concealed woman in the background of Third Eye’s cover is none other than hipster, tastemaker and filmmaker Sofia Coppola, who was dating one of the McDonald brothers at the time. And, most notably, Redd Kross ended up being in good company with their freaky ’70s-revival predictions and predilections when you consider that Deee-Lite’s World Clique (featuring the wildly infectious “Groove Is In The Heart”) came out only a month prior in 1990.
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