Michael Damian - Love is a Mystery

Ah, Michael Damian. Well, it was bound to happen at some point. To be honest I've been actually looking forward to this, mainly because I had packed a lot of baggage in advance and was just waiting for a chance to unload on what I was hoping would be a big pile of monkey droppings. I'd have my revenge for "Rock On" and nothing was going to get in my way.

Everybody knows that actors are often just frustrated musicians who were too pretty to be taken seriously. Then again, why is it that musicians want to be actors? Sigh.

The album I found was his 1984 debut "Love is a Mystery" on Columbia. Dang, this label was home to some pretty awesome acts. Maybe this was a novelty release. Thankfully the copy I found for my dollar had the liner notes, and the core band was Michael on vocals and keyboards - and chimes (couldn't find a triangle?), Larry Weir on guitars and keyboards, and Tom Weir on drums. A quick peek on the internet revealed that Michael, Larry and Tom were siblings. I'm guessing in the pecking order if they were Osmonds, Michael would be Donny.

I dropped the needle and waited for the banshees to be unleashed ...

This is what I had feared, but also to be honest had secretly hoped. It didn't suck. This was better than Jack Wagner's 1984 album - although unlike Jack's lone killer (have to give props even if you don't want to) "All I Need" there wasn't a big song here. This was miles away from being as good as "Hard to Hold" - Rick Springfield's album from the same year. However, it's not really fair to lump them all together - although it is fun.

Love is a Mystery is for all that a pretty decent pop record. It's steeped a little more in the later 70's power pop and rock than in the '80s techno leaning stuff that was emerging in '84 and frankly this is a good thing. The songs are quite good, even if they're a tad generic. Michael's voice is better than I expected and he services the songs. While there's nothing about his tone that really jumps out as unique I did enjoy myself. The majority of the songs were written or co-written by big brother Larry and he's got a pretty good ear. Although there were a couple of his songs that wore their influences on their sleeves. "Will You Make Up Your Mind" had more that a nod or two to Journey's "Anyway You Want It" and The Cars "Just What I Needed" and "Hard to Find Girl" sounded like a kissing cousin to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" but it was more a feeling than anything, and frankly it was more interesting to hear, than it was distracting.

This wasn't the shit show I had anticipated (let's be honest I wanted this to suck, and suck HARD). I was probably more critical of this because I came in wanting to take a dump on a nearly forty year album for fun. The fact that the album mostly won me over makes me wonder what I'd have thought of this if I hadn't brought so much baggage to the party.

You may have won this round Mr. Damian, but in the immortal words of Dr. Claw, "I'll get you next time, Gadget!"