Remote Control
Studio album by
the Tubes
ReleasedMarch 1979[1]
RecordedMusic Annex Studios, Menlo Park, California
GenreRock
Length41:44
LabelA&M
ProducerTodd Rundgren
The Tubes chronology
What Do You Want from Live
(1978) 		Remote Control
(1979) 		T.R.A.S.H. (Tubes Rarities and Smash Hits)
(1981)

Remote Control is the fourth studio album released by the Tubes. This was their first to be produced by Todd Rundgren (the other being 1985's Love Bomb). It is a concept album about a television-addicted idiot savant.

Background

Producer Todd Rundgren suggested that the next work be a concept album. Lead singer Fee Waybill sketched out a storyline based on his favorite book, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. "It wasn't an original concept," he admits, but "I tried to make it more contemporary." Rundgren encouraged the musical adaptation, and thrust himself into the project, as was his style: "Every song has so much of him," marveled Prairie Prince.[2]

Packaging

The cover of Remote Control depicts a baby watching the popular game show Hollywood Squares in a specially made "Vidi-Trainer". The back cover is the show's game board with eight members of the Tubes each sitting in different squares. The lower right corner square remained unoccupied with the band's name on the front; the eight members crammed into this same square for a photo that was later used for the compact disc release of this album. (Three members of the band – Waybill, Spooner and Steen – appeared as panelists on the actual game show in the late 70s.)

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[4]
Smash Hits8/10[5]

Although Rolling Stone panned the album upon its release in 1979, calling it "drearily obvious and stale",[1] two years later the same magazine loved it, limiting its praise of the subsequent album, The Completion Backward Principle, by saying, good as it was, "topping Remote Control will be difficult." AllMusic gives it four out of five stars.[3] Crawdaddy called it "a pop/rock masterpiece."[citation needed] The Globe and Mail determined that "the Tubes are to rock music what Second City are to television – sure-handed satirists who take every opportunity to rip huge chunks of flesh from the hand of society that feeds them... Their music never falls short of the outrageous and devilishly clever."[6]

Smash Hits said the album was, "clever and attractive, good songs and production, and enough energy to shrivel any heavy metal band.""[7]

The track Prime Time made No. 34 in the UK singles chart.[8]

Track listing

  1. "Turn Me On" – 4:10
  2. "T.V. is King" – 3:08 (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren)
  3. "Prime Time" – 3:15
  4. "I Want It All Now" – 4:27
  5. "No Way Out" – 3:22
  6. "Getoverture" (instrumental) – 3:23
  7. "No Mercy" – 3:27
  8. "Only the Strong Survive" – 3:54
  9. "Be Mine Tonight" – 3:30
  10. "Love's a Mystery (I Don't Understand)" – 3:27 (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren)
  11. "Telecide" – 5:41

2013 CD reissue

In April 2013, Iconoclassic reissued Remote Control in full with bonus tracks, and an expansive booklet including comments from Fee Waybill, Michael Cotten and Bill Spooner. The reissue was mastered by Vic Anesini from the original master tapes and featured four tracks from the unreleased Suffer for Sound album. These tracks were self-produced as the follow-up to Remote Control and the finished album was rejected by A&M which released a compilation featuring only one track from Suffer for Sound instead.

Bonus tracks:

  1. "Dreams Come True"
  2. "Dangerous"
  3. "Don't Ask Me"
  4. "Holy War"

Personnel

Additional personnel:

Charts

Chart (1979) Position
Australia (Kent Music Report)[9] 70
Canada (RPM)[10] 53
United Kingdom (Official Charts Company)[11] 40
United States (Billboard 200)[12] 46

References

  1. ^ a b Carson, Tom (July 21, 1979). "The Tubes – Remote Control". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 3, 2019 – via SuperSeventies.com.
  2. ^ Sharp, Ken (September 29, 2013). "Go back in time with The Tubes to the band's glory days". Goldminemag.com.
  3. ^ a b Guarisco, Donald A.. Remote Control at AllMusic
  4. ^ Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: T". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 16, 2019 – via Robertchristgau.com.
  5. ^ Starr, Red. "Albums". Smash Hits (May 17–31, 1979): 25.
  6. ^ Niester, Alan (31 Mar 1979). "Remote Control". The Globe and Mail. p. F10.
  7. ^ Red Starr (17 May 1979). "Album". Smash Hits. No. 12.
  8. ^ Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 568. ISBN 1-904994-10-5
  9. ^ Kent, David (1993). Australian Chart Book 1970–1992 (illustrated ed.). St Ives, N.S.W.: Australian Chart Book. p. 314. ISBN 0-646-11917-6.
  10. ^ "RPM Top 100 Albums - June 2, 1979" (PDF).
  11. ^ "Tubes: Albums". Officialcharts.com. 2019. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
  12. ^ "The Tubes Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard.com. 2019. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
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