Cult Pick - The Modern Lovers , The Modern Lovers

Posted on 01. Apr, 2008 by Administrator in Music

One of the great injustices of music journalism is the fact that the Modern Lovers rarely get mentioned in discussions of the 70’s U.S. punk scene. Sure, they were from Boston and not New York, but they were as fun as the Ramones, as quirky as the Talking Heads, and they packed enough punk edge and new wave sensibility to hold their own next to the Stooges and Blondie. The bands’ eponymous debut (1976) features the good-times car ride of “Roadrunner”, where Jonathan Richman sings that he’s going “faster miles an hour,” and the bizarre “Pablo Picasso”, where Richman observes, “Well, the girls would turn the color of an avocado/when he would drive down their street in his El Dorado/he could walk down your street/and girls could not resist his stare/Pablo Picasso never got called an asshole.” It also includes the pro-secretary track “Government Center” (“We gotta rock-a rock-a rock-a nonstop tonight/uh huh, at the government center/make the secretaries feel better/when they put the stamps on the letters”) and Richman’s endearing homage to his parents and grandparents, “Old World”. While there were a few other Modern Lovers releases, and Richman’s excellent solo career, this self-titled disc is the best place to start.

–Bill Dvorak

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