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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Detroit's Romantics were perhaps the most successful among the bands that
resurrected the party spirit of the Merseybeat era, especially on their first album, Romantics (Nemperor, 1979), where tracks like What I Like About You, one of the most driving garage-rock epileptic fits of the era (with all the linguistic arsenal of a classic celebration: macho singing, martial tempo, slogan-like chorus, Merseybeat choir, furious instrumental pandemonium, and supersonic harmonica solo), Gimme One More Chance (1980) and When I Look In Your Eyes also emulate the rave-ups of Swinging London's rowdiest bands repeating You Really Got Me-like riffs ad nauseam and awkwardly imitating the raucous singing of Black shouters.
Following the praxis of
Merseybeat bands such as the
Troggs
and
Them,
drummer Jimmy Marinos (the main composer) pounds away
primordial pulsations, Wally Palmar sings like a more macho
Iggy Pop
and rips apart the instrumental breaks with furious harmonica solos,
while Rich Cole's
demonic Rickenbacker decorates everything with shiver-inducing riffs.
Tomboy and Stone Pony, on National Breakout
(Nemperor, 1980),
and then the emphatic mediocrity of
Strictly Personal (august 1981 - Nemperor, 1981),
and then the hit
Talking In Your Sleep and One In A Million, off
In Heat (june 1983 - Nemperor, 1983), and finally Rhythm Romance (may 1985 - Nemperor 1985)
carved
a more and more commercial path.
Within the saga of 1980s revival music, the
Romantics complemented the
Shoes: if the latter formalized the language of singing, the former synthesized the rhythm of the wildest 1960s.
Blondie's
drummer Clem Burke joined the Romantics in 1990.
They still released the EP Made In Detroit (Westbound Records, 1994) and the album 61/49 (Web, 2003)
Jimmy Marinos released Rollin' & Tumblin' (Black Cat, 1993) with the Motor City Rockers.
Wally Palmar formed the "supergroup" The Empty Hearts with
Andy Babiuk (the Chesterfield Kings), Elliot Easton (the Cars) and Clem Burke (Blondie) for The Empty Hearts (Columbia, 2014) and The Second Album (Wicked Cool, 2020).
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