I discovered Level 42 when I was 15. At 47, I'm now a lifelong Level 42 fan, but I contend they were much less successful than they should have been. I'd like to discuss why.
My thesis - the Level 42 that existed from 1985 to about 1988 gained enough global notoriety to fuel the balance of their careers from then to now. But we were lied to - when you consider the overall body of work, it's obvious they were getting a lot of help during their "greatest hits" years.
The really early stuff from 1980-1984, the straightforward funk workout tunes - that stuff was great for what it was and I would have gone berzerk had I walked into some club in London in 1983 and heard that for the first time. But it was not marketable and the songwriting was mostly weak.
Then came Wally Badarou and whomever else Polydor used uncredited to produce "World Machine" and "Running in the Family." Those people must have had more to do with the product than anyone let on, because the songwriting quality on those records is WAY better than anything that came before or after - and the musical arrangement choices were much more effectively done for radio. Even the deep cuts on those albums are better than the lead-ins on most of the other albums. "Sleepwalkers" for example is a masterful song.
Then band started crumbling internally, like bands do, and the next album "Staring at the Sun" was a musical disaster. Personnel churn got worse, not better, and the record labels gave up by about 1990.
Level 42 has only released 4 albums of new music since 1990:
SO -
My prognosis is that Level 42 was a Wally Badarou project and that the quality of their music overall varied directly with his involvement.
They were a group of good players who caught a little Brit-funk wave. They got signed and had big-time writers and producers thrown at their product - especially Wally Badarou. That gave us "Something About You", "Lessons In Love", and 99.99% of what most people have heard.
The label investment dried up and Phil Gould left the band, which had a striking effect on song quality in retrospect. After that, Level 42 weren't talented enough to keep themselves going beyond being a tribute band of themselves.
I still listen though.
My thesis - the Level 42 that existed from 1985 to about 1988 gained enough global notoriety to fuel the balance of their careers from then to now. But we were lied to - when you consider the overall body of work, it's obvious they were getting a lot of help during their "greatest hits" years.
The really early stuff from 1980-1984, the straightforward funk workout tunes - that stuff was great for what it was and I would have gone berzerk had I walked into some club in London in 1983 and heard that for the first time. But it was not marketable and the songwriting was mostly weak.
Then came Wally Badarou and whomever else Polydor used uncredited to produce "World Machine" and "Running in the Family." Those people must have had more to do with the product than anyone let on, because the songwriting quality on those records is WAY better than anything that came before or after - and the musical arrangement choices were much more effectively done for radio. Even the deep cuts on those albums are better than the lead-ins on most of the other albums. "Sleepwalkers" for example is a masterful song.
Then band started crumbling internally, like bands do, and the next album "Staring at the Sun" was a musical disaster. Personnel churn got worse, not better, and the record labels gave up by about 1990.
Level 42 has only released 4 albums of new music since 1990:
- "Guaranteed" sounded like it could have been a whole album of tunes that got cut from the "RITF" sessions. It was still Wally Badarou producing, and it does sort of sound like "RITF" in the production - but there was a lot of personnel change and this album definitely misses Phil and Boon Gould's writing contribution.
- "Forever Now" was a very good outing, and maybe one of the band's best albums overall, but was buried by an insignificant record label that did nothing to promote it. It is a solid album that nobody heard; worth seeking out solely to hear Mark King play a Stingray, which really works well and I wonder why he didn't use it more. Not surprisingly, Wally Badarou was back as producer.
- "Retroglide" sounds like a Mark King solo album that he recorded using the Level 42 name, which in this case I don't mean in a good way.
- "Sirens" is some kind of strange attempt to fuse styles that doesn't work well to my ears.
SO -
My prognosis is that Level 42 was a Wally Badarou project and that the quality of their music overall varied directly with his involvement.
They were a group of good players who caught a little Brit-funk wave. They got signed and had big-time writers and producers thrown at their product - especially Wally Badarou. That gave us "Something About You", "Lessons In Love", and 99.99% of what most people have heard.
The label investment dried up and Phil Gould left the band, which had a striking effect on song quality in retrospect. After that, Level 42 weren't talented enough to keep themselves going beyond being a tribute band of themselves.
I still listen though.
