A reissue of Pearl Harbor and the Explosions’ delightful New Wave debut is more than welcome and long overdue. Sounding great since it’s newly remastered, Pearl Harbor and the Explosions has also been splendidly expanded from the original nine-song LP with six bonus tracks plus one 1979 radio ad.
The album is now housed in a tri-fold cardboard mini-LP sleeve that replicates the original Warner Bros. Records LP front and back cover. A cool BAM magazine cover featuring the band is replicated within one of the cardboard sleeve’s inside panels.
Also included is a fabulous color booklet of many unseen photos along with Joel Selvin’s superb liner notes detailing the brief history of Pearl Harbor and the Explosions and their lone studio effort. The only thing Blixa Sounds missed was a plastic inner sleeve to protect the compact disc from any possible scratches or scuffs.
Amongst the cool bonus tracks are the original pre-Warner Bros. single versions of “Drivin'” and “Release It.” This particular single version of “Drivin,'” originally issued on 415 Records, is especially different in its more stripped-down, less-produced approach. This isn’t a better version, but most of the unique elements which would later make the Warner Bros. LP version such a New Wave classic are already here. T
The almost-identical 415 Records single edition of “Release It,” however, is not all that much different than the Warner Bros. LP version, which was re-recorded and retitled “You Got It (Release It).”
My personal favorite of the bonus tracks is Pearl Harbor and the Explosions’ joyously upbeat “Busy Little B Side,” which traces the story a song climbing up the charts. It originally appeared as a real life non-LP B-side on the “You Got It (Release It)” single, but really deserved to be included on the original LP. It’s that great of a song!
A couple of fabulous, upbeat live rockin’ covers (“Let’s Eat,” “Black Slacks,” “I Can Feel the Fire” from 1979 make up the rest of the bonus tracks on Pearl Harbor and the Explosions. “So Much For Love” is a lovely “tried that, through with that and it didn’t work out so well”-type ballad, and it works well for them. One thing that doesn’t get mentioned are the wonderful backing vocals by the Explosions throughout the whole album. It goes without saying how great Pearl E. Gates is as a lead singer.
Of course, “Drivin'” is the best song on the album, and a New Wave classic if there ever was one. It still sounds great to this day. Even though they were both released as singles, the pulsating “Up and Over” and “You Got It (Release It)” somehow didn’t march up the charts. In that same musical vein, the pulsating “Get a Grip on Yourself” should’ve been an FM radio hit, too.
It’s interesting to hear the mid-tempo “Don’t Come Back,” because it now comes across as an amalgam of the rockabilly and jazz rock-like musical stylings that later led to the band’s split when neither Pearl or the Explosions couldn’t agree on a musical direction. “Shut Up and Dance,” one of their more rocking numbers, definitely falls into New Wave territory and probably should’ve been their mantra in possibly avoiding a split.
After Pearl Harbor and the Explosions’ self-titled album was released and the related tour was complete, they reconvened in 1980 to discuss what to do next with the expected second album. That’s where the real trouble began; that ugly old rock ‘n’ roll cliché of “musical differences” which would split them apart forever. What a shame, because as a team they were an exciting band to watch.
After the break up, Pearl Harbor married the Clash’s Paul Simonen, and went on to a brief solo career that she more recently jump started again. The Explosions split off into other bands like Peter Bilt and the Expressions, and Chrome – and all of this quickly became unjustly forgotten. Now, it’s time to grab a copy of this cool album before it goes out of print again.
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