Hey this is my submitted album! I suppose this is a good time to explain why I chose this one. It wasn't an easy choice but I wanted something that was undeservedly left off the list while also having a low chance of having been chosen by someone else. Obviously, everyone criticizes weezer and neutral milk hotel being left off and as much as I personally love stuff like 100 gecs I don't think it quite deserves inclusion on the list so I settled on this. Not only is this a childhood favorite of mine but I think danny elfman deserves at least some representation on this list. This album in particular is the best of 80s music and is endlessly catchy and relistenable for me. Weird science is great but I like the title track and no one lives forever even more. Honestly, this is the closest thing to hyperpop like 100 gecs I can think of for the 80s which also might be a factor. Who cares if some of the songs are a bit long or the production gets overwhelming, that's the fun of it.
Dead Man's Party
Oingo Boingo
1985
- Album Summary
This album has been submitted by a user and is not included in any edition of the book.
Dead Man's Party is the fifth album by American new wave band Oingo Boingo, released in 1985 by MCA Records. The album contains the only two singles by the band to chart on the Billboard Hot 100: "Weird Science" at number 45, and "Just Another Day" at number 85. The album was the band's first to be certified gold for sales of 500,000 units. The album cover art is an homage to the Mexican holiday Día de Los Muertos. Elfman stated that he wrote the album's lead single, "Weird Science", spontaneously in his car, after receiving a call from director John Hughes about composing a song for his upcoming film of the same name. The song went on to become the band's most commercially successful single, which Elfman later regretted, as he believed it "just didn't feel like it was really a part of [the band's] repertoire".
Reviews
Like a review? Give it a thumb up to help us display relevant reviews!I've heard the song "Stay" before. I had it on a mixtape about 25 years ago. Can't remember anything about it though - pretty sure it's new wave sorta stuff? Holy shit it's super catchy. Better than just "new wave" - has the same sort of vibe as Devo and Martini Ranch. Poppy, definite new wave sounds going on, but really intricate and layered and a bunch of other wanky adjectives. But it's awesome. Going to spam mates with it. 5/5.
This is a great example of new wave. Danny Elfman is best known as a composer but his music made for mainstream consumption is catchy, well-produced, and very well constructed. There are many layers to uncover in every song and the rhythms and melodies are interesting and weave into each other very well. In a list full of new wave, this stands out.
Like a more commercial-sounding Devo. Weird, but not alienatingly weird.
Rating: 10/10
One of my all time favorites from one of my all time favorites. Honestly it's probably like my 3rd or 4th favorite Boingo album but it's pure spooky fire from top to bottom. I'll give a relisten in October like I always do :)
This definitely seems like a worthy addition. Fantastic album that should have made the original list!
Nostalgic and fun.
That's some fun nostalgia!
This was a fun, catchy time. I always liked "Weird Science," but I am really glad to have enjoyed this whole great album.
What a neat album and cool that it's a Danny Elfman project. I never knew that! Really enjoyed this album.
Another band with an immediately familiar name that I realized I'd absorbed zero information about previously (didn't know it was a Danny Elfman project, or that they made the Wierd Science song). Pretty solid alt-new-wave fare.
Really good!
Fun, upbeat, catchy. 4 stars.
Not bad. But not too outstandingly good too
In general good album; I am glad I always hear at least one time the whole album … Weird Science at the end of the album? Do these guys play Weird Science??? That is extra credits for sure!
Ah, a solid choice. And fittingly, I happened to get this album the day before Halloween. I think Oingo Boingo absolutely should have made the original list. I always enjoyed them, and this is an album that got a lot of play in my house when it came out. It has Danny Elfman's trademark oddball sensibility, while at the same time being really accessible and fun to listen to. This is about as 80s as you can get in an album, but in the best ways. Vibrant, brassy and funky, but not at all overbearing. The underlying themes that run through some of the songs of death, ghosts and embracing life were really clever and unusual for the time, without ever getting overly creepy or dour. The most famous song on the album ("Weird Science") kind of doesn't fit with the other stuff, but is still pretty catchy, nearly 40 years later. Fave Songs: Dead Man's Party, Just Another Day, Stay, Weird Science, No One Lives Forever, Heard Somebody Cry
Very 1980s guitar pop/rock. At times a bit Duran Duran, Art Of Noise and even Blancmange or Wang Chung.
I can see American Psycho's Patrick Bateman dance to this.
This was way more fun than I expected but an appropriate amount of fun from a band named oingo boingo. My first couple listens I thought this was some silly 80s pop album but as the day progressed and my alcohol intake increased I found myself enjoying this album and it being a treat of melodic silliness. Overall not too bad. Just the right amount of weird. 6.2/10
Suffers from many of the classic New Wave pitfalls of the time, most notably arrangements that run on and on and don't know when enough choruses are enough. Even the tracks with appropriate runtimes feel so flat, much as I usually love the synthy soundscapes of the genre.
The whole 80s feel only highlights the success of Weird Science as a kind of one hit from the album and separates it quite a bit from the other tracks that seem more like a compilation of songs in accelerated mode. Honestly, it seemed to me to be just another album from the 80s. 2 1/2 stars.
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