I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s gone through a cut-out bin or sale bin in the past and bought an album simply because A) it was cheap, and B) it looked like it would sound good.
I know, there’s no sense to that, really, but sometimes an album cover just has a cool look about it, and, as a result, it leads to suspect that if it looks cool, then there’s at least a halfway decent chance that it sounds cool. And then, when you consider that you haven’t actually heard of the artist before makes you wonder, “Have I discovered some heretofore-unappreciated gem…?”
Enter Dave Adams.
I’d never heard of the guy before, but to be painfully honest, I bought his cassette because the picture of him on the cover made him look like Feargal Sharkey (late of the Undertones)…and I thought, “Well, I like Feargal Sharkey.” And, for 99 cents, I rationalized that the mere fact that he LOOKED like someone whose music I liked was enough to make it a worthwhile purchase.
So I bought it, opened it, popped it into the cassette player…and heard “Tears.”
For my money, it’s one of the greatest lost ’80s pop songs of all time. See what you think; it’s only a two-minute clip, but it spotlights both the verse and chorus, and that’s more than enough to get the gist.
