Bauhaus - Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape

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Music reviews of Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape

Music Review: A masterpiece of Goth Rock
Rating: 5 Stars

For a brief period of time during the early to mid 1980's, the ultimate in pale white kid music was a new offshoot of post-punk that the critics were just then beginning to call "Goth Rock." At it's prime, Goth Rock was (much like its listeners) dark, depressing, and yet frighteningly attractive. However, that prime didn't last long beyond the style's infancy. As a music, Goth Rock soon began to spiral downwards into pits of self-indulgence. It's once meaningful lyrics started to become inundated with "poetic" discussions about mysticism and the like, which were at times boring and at others just downright laughable. The stage performances began to turn the way of Kissesque garish costumed melodrama. Possibly even more detrimental to Goth's reputation, was how as a culture, it began to become associated with that creepy kid you saw walking down the hallway with the fishnets and the big gaudy cross hanging across his chest (ironically, that kid probably listened to Ozzy Osbourne, but that's another story...). Basically, as soon as it all started taking itself too seriously, it became a joke.

Looking at all this, it is easy to see why so many people began quickly forgot Goth Rock's startlingly impressive origins. In their 1979-1983 prime, bands like Joy Division, Sioux and the Banshees, and The Cure were able to construct sorrowful soundscapes that were addictive at the same time as they were powerful, with lyrics that were introspective, intensely personal, and suprisingly intelligent coming from boys who wore eye makeup. Arguably the quintessential Goth Rock band from this "golden age" was Bauhaus, an English based band, who many have called the founding fathers of Goth.

In 1979, Bauhaus released their first single, "Bela Lugosi's Dead," which is, for all intensive purposes, the first Goth Rock song. Two years later, they had released two albums (neither of them masterpieces, but both good), and were rapidly increasing in popularity. Then, in 1982, they released Push the Eject and Give Me the Tape, a live album. It documented a series of shows across Europe and perfectly captured Bauhaus where it seems clear that they shone brightest: on stage.

Push kicks off with "In the Flat Fields," the title song off their first album. It rushes in with gut wrenching guitar noise, synthetic drums, and howling screams. It is angry and dark, exploring territory that beforehand had never really been touched in rock. Lead singer Peter Murphy openly sing/speaks of things like decay and fear. On tracks like "Hollow Hills," he discusses topics like the occult in a way that may now seem cliche, but then was completely revolutionary.

However, being revolutionary is only enough to make an album a point of fascination. It doesn't necessarily make it good, or even listenable. But what keeps Bauhaus' music from being dated is two things. The first is its humor, which is very rare in Goth music. The band constantly had a sense of the cult that was so quickly forming in their wake, and they always made a point to look at themselves, their posturing, and (even more appropriately) their fans, and have a nice long creepy cackling laugh. Even as their songs get ridiculously depressing, there is this sense of "Hey, we understand that we're singing about the dead guy who used to play Dracula (Bela Lugosi), and we find it just as hysterical as we do morbid." For me, listening to a Bauhaus song is like watching Terry Gilliam's Brazil or reading the posts at godhatesfags.com, it makes you laugh while it tears at your soul.

The other strong point is a big one: Bauhaus' songs are amazingly well written. Chord-based chilly guitar work and globs of feedback attack you at first, but after a song or so you forget it, as it has already seeped into the gloomy atmosphere that surrounds what are in essence the core of Bauhaus' catalog: some amazingly well written, albeit wholly unusual, pop songs. The standout is a nine and a half minute version of their signature song, "Bela Lugosi's Dead." Starting with some insanely perfunctory minimalist drum work, Bela run almost a minute before a guitar enters. But once that down-the-scale baseline starts mumbling, there's no way out. By the time the two lead guitars and Murphy's echoing vocals step in, the trance like state you will be in will be shattered to pieces and slowly gathered and forced into climax by the end scream of "Who's dead? He's DEAD! I'm dead...I'm dead, I`m DEAD, I`M DEAD!" It's surreal, it's sublime, and shows why this band hasn't receded into the annals of music history, why this song along kick started a music revolution, and why it was so hard for any of Bauhaus' followers to ever match them.

Final Rating: 9.6/10 A masterpiece of Goth Rock that has escaped the ravages of cliche and time through its excellent songwriting and intelligent, darkly humorous philosophies. Bauhaus is the ultimate example of what Goth Rock was at its height, and what it could have been had the rest of the bands followed suit.

Description of Press the Eject and Give Me the Tape

Alternative Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Pop
• Rock