Tina & The Total Babes--She's So Tuff
Sympathy For The Record Industry 2001
These days, it seems like a good deal of the fun in music often gets overintellectualized away by people who don't really even like or care about music in the first place. However, there is still music being made in this day and age that could never be forced into that despicable fate. She's So Tuff by Tina & The Total Babes is one of the best examples you're likely to find of music incapable of having its fun sapped away--by anyone or anything.
Tina & The Total Babes play, without question, some of the finest power pop ever committed to tape. The band plays everything dead on and it's all driven by the always cool, sexy, dripping with attitude vocals of Tina Lucchesi from the Bobbyteens. The production is nice and clean, which suits everything perfectly, giving the whole album a feeling of innocent grandeur.
"What about the songwritng," you ask? It's incredible! Imagine if Rick Springfield ever did an album where every song was just as great as "Jessie's Girl" and you're still nowhere close to grasping how phenomenal these tracks are. It makes you feel like your head is going to explode, trying to pick standouts in this field of gems--from the massive "Christy," to the heartwrenching ballad "Tragedy," straight through to the Gary Glitter inspired glam slam of "It's Tina Time," this stuff is, again, absolutely perfect. A lot of attention will probably come the way of She's So Tuff due to the Bobbyteens connection (which is cool) but hopefully people will take a close look at the liner notes so that Travis Ramin and Jacques Wait (the two guys who wrote the bulk of this material) get the credit they deserve. They have really created pop genius with this group of tunes.
Too innocent to be overthought and too fun to care anyway, She's So Tuff is a no-brainer instant classic. Perfect in every way imaginable, you're left scratching your head in dazed wonder trying to figure out how the hell you ever got by without it. You owe yourself and this album a listen.
Score this CD directly from SFTRI
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