Joe Walsh: There Goes The Neighborhood - 1981


Perhaps Walsh's most full-on rocking album is this one. 

It is a fine example of riff-heavy early eighties rock but without the synthesisers which would blight so many rock recordings as the decade progressed. Like most of his albums it is short, only eight tracks. I like that. It makes it easier to get into.

This album is just proper guitar and drum-driven loud rock from the first deep, bassy, thumping notes of Things. I love the piano and Steely Dan feel on this track. Made Your Mind Up is like the sort of stuff Billy Joel was doing at around the same time when he decided to rock. 

Down On The Farm has some madcap country-style violin swirling around beneath the riffage while Rivers (Of The Hidden Funk) uses the voice box gadget that Peter Frampton and Walsh, originally, had used to great effect. It is a track that reminds me of Neil Young's Cinnamon Girl and Paul Weller's The Changing Man in places. I'm not quite sure about the latter link but something about it brings to mind Weller's song.

A Life Of Illusion has an infectious, rolling drum sound and a bit of a George Harrison vibe about it, together with some Los Lobos/Mavericks-style Mexican instrumentation. It is a really appealing number. Bones is a solid grinder of a number. Rockets has a lot of early seventies Beach Boys ethereality beneath its slow but powerful beat. The album ends with the staccato and atmospheric shuffle of You Never Know - check the excellent bongos, guitar and drums bit near the end. All good stuff - there's no duff tracks on here.

I like this album because it rocks all the way, no silly throwaway fillers, instrumentals or interludes. Of the four Joe Walsh albums I have covered, it is probably my favourite.

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