If people penning current Hollywood scripts grew up watching John Hughes movies, then bands like Elkand must have grown up listening to those soundtracks.

Except Elkland didn’t grow up listening to the likes of Simple Minds, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Echo And The Bunnymen and Psychedelic Furs because brothers Jon (vocals) and Jesse Pierce (drums) grew up in a strictly religious, New York household that forbade music. So the band’s straight-outta-new-wave debut is a bit baffling. Then again, maybe it isn’t, because those high school mellow-dramas could have been the only way the Pierce siblings got their hands on music. Which would explain why “Golden” is more 80’s than “Where’s the beef,” “Just say ‘No,’” or a Rick Sutcliffe Cy Young award.

In recent years, the next-wave/dance-punk revival has everyone pining for the music of the Reagan administration. The likes of Franz Ferdinand, The Killers and Interpol have led a full-on attack on pop culture, creating rose-colored memories of radio from over two decades ago.

The problem with that, is the 1980’s created some of the worst music in recent history. For every Cure, New Order, Depeche Mode, Joy Division, Gang Of Four and The Smiths, were a hundred A-Ha’s, Tears For Fears, Thompson Twins, A Flock Of Seagulls, Wham!, Culture Clubs, Modern Englishes and Bow Wow Wows. Every ground breaking, mind altering, or just slightly entertaining moment was co-opted, striped of its life, flattened, synthesized, carbon copied and packaged in excess.

This is the decade’s true legacy. Forget the gestation of bands like U2, The Replacements and REM. Ignore moments etched in rock’n’roll history like Live Aid. Overlook political and sociological milestones like the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Miracle on Ice.

The 1980’s were a cold, sterile place to live and an even colder and more sterile place to make music. So when Jon Pierce bellows, “I want you to be here/ I want it to be now” during the records only noteworthy track, “Apart,” one has to question why.

Because in the here-and-now, Elkland doesn’t matter. However, to a girl in a pink dress, a library full of stereotypes, three friends playing hooky or a gal on her 16th birthday, his band could mean the world.

DerekWright.net, May 19, 2005