Smithereens

(Translated from my original Italian text by ChatGPT and Piero Scaruffi)

Pat DiNizio, first with the Smithereens and then on his own, established himself as one of the great masters of power-pop.

The Smithereens formed in New Jersey and soon became favorites with audiences in nearby New York. As early as the EP Girls About Town (D-Tone, 1982), the quartet showed strong roots in the rock and roll tradition and a clear distance from the hardcore excesses of the metropolis. Rather, an ideal trajectory linked them to the power-pop bands of Los Angeles and especially to the folk-pop revolution that was spreading through Georgia.

DiNizio began crafting the pop that would make him famous with the sparkling quartet of songs on the EP Beauty And Sadness (Little Ricky, 1983): the catchy folk-rock of Some Other Guy, the martial Tracey's World, the rockabilly Much Too Much, and Beauty And Sadness, a languid psychedelic-rock melody. All their music would be inspired by the vocal harmonies of Tamla, the rhythms of Merseybeat, and the “jingle-jangle” of folk-rock.

Their first album, Especially For You (Enigma, 1986), was above all a spontaneous and harmonious synthesis of 1960s sounds. Not only do the songs race along with exuberance and catchiness, but the lyrics anchor them firmly in their own time. Musically, DiNizio is a living encyclopedia of rock music: Strangers When We Meet echoes Petula Clark and the Searchers, Time And Time Again is a melodrama in the style of Roy Orbison (recalling the riff of Pretty Woman), Groovy Tuesday is a variation on the theme of Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones), and Crazy Mixed-up Kid is another Stray Cats-style rockabilly piece. In A Lonely Place even evokes the light orchestral style of Bacharach and his soft jazz.
The heart of the album is folk-rock, both the chiming Byrds-style sound (I Don't Want To Lose You recalls the driving I Feel A Whole Lot Better) and the choral style of the Association (Hand Of Glory). Moments of tension are few (notably Behind The Wall Of Sleep, a distorted, martial boogie in the style of the Guess Who), although towering above all is Blood And Roses, a voodoo-blues reminiscent of House Of Highland Ave by the Gun Club.
DiNizio is a conjurer who manages to pull out from everywhere the most timeworn sounds of rock, from Chuck Berry’s chiming solos to the ghostly stride of Heartbreak Hotel.

If that masterpiece lacked a single definitive standout, Green Thoughts (Enigma, 1988) made up for it with Only A Memory, a haunting chorus over a martial hard-rock riff that would become a reference point for future generations (particularly Brit-pop). World We Know achieves a similar effect but with one of the hardest riffs of their career. House We Used To Live In seems at first just another catchy, innocent tune, but is actually built on a driving melodic variant of the distorted raga-like patterns of the Velvet Underground (and modeled on the melody of In A Lonely Place). These songs alone are enough to outclass the competition: in the annals of pop, few musicians have crafted three such memorable melodies on a single album.
And the album does not end with these melodic peaks. DiNizio offers Something New, a ballad that slyly oscillates between Costello and Crenshaw, and Elaine, a Merseybeat piece worthy of the Hollies—songs destined to remain among the genre’s classics and to revive the sound of the “power guitar,” distorted and virile but always subservient to melody.

If Essentially had been the satori of Tin Pan Alley melody, romantic Merseybeat airs, surf music, and bubblegum choruses, Green Thoughts goes beyond revivalism, adopting a more solemn tone (perhaps influenced by R.E.M.) and a bright heavy-metal sheen.

With these two power-pop masterpieces, the Smithereens established themselves among the most baroque imitators of 1960s melodicism, without resorting to psychedelic poses like their West Coast counterparts Rain Parade and Three O’Clock. DiNizio is infinitely more knowledgeable than his competitors, having absorbed the lessons of Tamla soul, Memphis rockabilly, and light-orchestra shuffle rhythms.

The Smithereens increased the dose of gritty electricity on 11 (Enigma, 1989), aiming to turn the successes of Only A Memory and World We Knew into a million-selling career. The shift from early power-pop to this more aggressive “heavy-pop” also marks a change in mood: no longer nostalgic and playful, but melancholic and neurotic. In doing so, they completed a trajectory that forms a natural bridge between the Sixties and the Nineties—between carefree spirit and anxiety, imitation and creation, adolescence and maturity. When DiNizio pushes harder, he crafts songs like Blues Before And After, a boogie driven by powerful riffs, without sacrificing his melodic gift, as shown especially in Baby Be Good and Yesterday Girl, choruses so perfect they rival the Beach Boys. If he sometimes draws on the girl-group tradition (William Wilson), in Blue Period, arranged with harpsichord and cello, he even ventures into Renaissance music. The balance between pop and hard rock reaches peaks of mannerism in another masterpiece, A Girl Like You. DiNizio begins to repeat himself, trapped by the two chords of Only A Memory, but when he finds the right chorus and bridge, he has few rivals in music history.

Blow Up (Capitol, 1991) shows a sudden drop in inspiration. Top Of The Pops (essentially a rewrite of A Girl Like You) climbs the charts, but the band behind Too Much Passion sounds twenty years older than the one behind Only A Memory.

A Date With (RCA, 1994) highlights the more melancholic tones of this poet of frustration (for example in Afternoon Tea and Sleep The Night Away), who may simply be aging and no longer identifies with the exuberant choruses that made him famous. When he tries, he no longer seems as convinced: the single Miles From Nowhere echoes many earlier songs.

Inevitably the band broke up, and DiNizio began a solo career in search of a new sound. Songs and Sounds (Velvel, 1997), with a rhythm section featuring J.J. Burnel (ex-Stranglers) and Tony Smith, and produced by Don Dixon, actually changes very little. Where Am I Going seems to point in a new direction, but Nobody But Me, 124 MPH, Running Jumping Standing Still, and especially Today It's You continue in the vein of his usual catchy melodies. In fact, this is an album that comes very close to the sound of Green Thoughts. It is rounded out by atmospheric songs like No Love Lost and I'd Rather Have The Blues, a ballad like Lisa, and a 1960s-style folk-rock piece like Everyday World.