Search - Robert Palmer :: Clues

Palmer moves to New Wave and makes his best album ever!

Todd Bartholomew | Atlanta, GA USA | 02/25/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Clues" represented a major departure for Robert Palmer, shifting from his typically island-flavored rock towards harder edged New Wave/Electronica. At the time "Clues" was recorded Palmer was playing on the Talking Head's Remain in Light sessions and was heavily influenced by Gary Numan, and all of them wind up playing on the tracks here. Palmer's chameleonic voice was ideally suited for electronica, ranging from the low rumble demonstrated on "Johnny and Mary" to the falsetto on the title track. There still is a strong island flavor here and there, as on "Woke Up Laughing", but overall keyboards and drum machines dominate as on the Numan-penned track "I Dream of Wires", which rocks harder here than on Numan's original. The hard rock reworking of the Beatles' "Not A Second Time" is nothing short of astonishing; you'd hardly know it was the Beatles as it's stripped down so much and rocked so hard. Standout tracks abound and "Clues" was probably Palmer's best and most consistent album in his lengthy career. Although not thematically organized, the songs are largely about love and longing, and "Clues" is a rollercoaster ride of emotions from the sparse warmth of "Found You Now" to the icily detached couple in "Johnny and Mary", to the future-shock of "I Dream of Wires."



"Clues cemented Palmer's palce in New Wave and he would continue to explore that on 1982's Maybe It's Live and 1983's Pride. More importantly "Clues", like OMD's Architecture & Morality, showed that electronica didn't have to be emotionally distant and removed. Far from it, "Clues" is warm, funny, and very engaging!

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