Remote Control (The Tubes album)

Remote Control is the fifth album released by the Tubes. This was their first to be produced by Todd Rundgren (the other being 1985's Love Bomb). It is a concept album about a television-addicted idiot savant.

Remote Control
Studio album by
The Tubes
ReleasedMarch 1979[1]
RecordedMusic Annex Studios, Menlo Park, California
GenreRock
Length41:44
LabelA&M
ProducerTodd Rundgren
The Tubes chronology
What Do You Want from Live
(1978)		 Remote Control
(1979)		 T.R.A.S.H. (Tubes Rarities and Smash Hits)
(1981)
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic [2]
Christgau's Record GuideC+[3]
Smash Hits8/10[4]

Background

Producer Todd Rundgren suggested that the next work be a concept album. Lead singer Fee Waybill sketched out a storyline based on his favorite book, Being There by Jerzy Kosinski. "It wasn't an original concept," he admits, but "I tried to make it more contemporary." Rundgren encouraged the musical adaptation, and thrust himself into the project, as was his style: "Every song has so much of him," marveled Prairie Prince.[5]

Packaging

The cover of Remote Control depicts a baby watching the popular game show Hollywood Squares in a specially made "Vidi-Trainer". The back cover is a close-up photo of the show's game board with eight members of the Tubes each sitting in different squares. The lower right corner square remained unoccupied with the band's name on the front. (Three members of the band – Waybill, Spooner and Steen – appeared as panelists on the actual game show in the late 70s.)

Reception

Although Rolling Stone panned the album upon its release in 1979, calling it "drearily obvious and stale",[1] two years later the same magazine loved it, limiting its praise of the subsequent album, The Completion Backward Principle, by saying, good as it was, "topping Remote Control will be difficult." AllMusic gives it four out of five stars.[2] Crawdaddy called it "a pop/rock masterpiece."

The track Prime Time made No. 34 in the UK singles chart.[6]

Track listing
  1. "Turn Me On" – 4:10
  2. "T.V. is King" – 3:08 (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren)
  3. "Prime Time" – 3:15
  4. "I Want It All Now" – 4:27
  5. "No Way Out" – 3:22
  6. "Getoverture" (instrumental) – 3:23
  7. "No Mercy" – 3:27
  8. "Only the Strong Survive" – 3:54
  9. "Be Mine Tonight" – 3:30
  10. "Love's a Mystery (I Don't Understand)" – 3:27 (The Tubes, Todd Rundgren)
  11. "Telecide" – 5:41

2013 CD reissue

In April 2013, Iconoclassic reissued Remote Control in full with bonus tracks, and an expansive booklet including comments from Fee Waybill, Michael Cotten and Bill Spooner. The reissue was mastered by Vic Anesini from the original master tapes and featured four tracks from the unreleased Suffer for Sound album. These tracks were self-produced as the follow-up to Remote Control and the finished album was rejected by A&M which released a compilation featuring only one track from Suffer for Sound instead.

Bonus tracks:

  1. "Dreams Come True"
  2. "Dangerous"
  3. "Don't Ask Me"
  4. "Holy War"

Personnel

Additional personnel:

Charts
Chart Position Date
US Billboard Albums[7] 46 May 1979
UK Official Charts[8] 40 February 1979

Singles

The single "Prime Time" reached No. 28 on the Irish charts in May 1979.[9]

References
  1. Carson, Tom (July 21, 1979). "The Tubes – Remote Control". Rolling Stone. Retrieved September 3, 2019 – via SuperSeventies.com.
  2. Guarisco, Donald A.. Remote Control at AllMusic
  3. Christgau, Robert (1981). "Consumer Guide '70s: T". Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies. Ticknor & Fields. ISBN 089919026X. Retrieved March 16, 2019 – via Robertchristgau.com.
  4. Starr, Red. "Albums". Smash Hits (May 17–31, 1979): 25.
  5. Sharp, Ken (September 29, 2013). "Go back in time with The Tubes to the band's glory days". Goldminemag.com.
  6. Roberts, David (2006). British Hit Singles & Albums (19th ed.). London: Guinness World Records Limited. p. 568. ISBN 1-904994-10-5
  7. "The Tubes Chart History: Billboard 200". Billboard.com. 2019. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
  8. "Tubes: Albums". Officialcharts.com. 2019. Archived from the original on July 2, 2019. Retrieved August 31, 2019.
  9. "Search by Artist: The Tubes". Irishcharts.ie. Irish Recorded Music Association. 2019. Retrieved September 11, 2019.
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