![\"\"](\"http:\/\/musoscribe.com\/images\/paleybros_complete.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
File these guys under Music You Probably Missed. Chalk it up to record execs not knowing exactly what to do with The Paley Brothers<\/strong>, or perhaps assign some of the blame to the artists themselves for not fitting neatly into a \u201cbox\u201d as the record business demanded (and demands) of recording artists.<\/p>\n Whatever the reason, The Paley Brothers (Andy<\/strong> and Jonathan<\/strong>) would release but one long-playing album for Sire (1978’s cleverly-titled Paley Brothers<\/em>) and then fade into obscurity. But that album was a real cracker, as was the cache of material they recorded before and after.<\/p>\n But even the hardest of hardcore powerpop fanatics weren’t all fully aware of The Paley Brothers. My first exposure to them was within the pages of The New Music<\/em>, an excellent (if now charmingly dated) 1980 survey of new wave and cutting-edge musical acts penned by renowned music journalist\/critics Glenn A. Baker<\/strong> and Stuart Coupe<\/strong>. Granted a full column in the book, The Paley Brothers’ history is laid out in potted fashion, and the authors make it clear that their album (\u201cproduced by Earle Mankey<\/strong>, an original member of Sparks<\/strong><\/a>\u201d) is worthwhile.<\/p>\n But in those days I never heard their music, never stumbled across Paley Brothers<\/em> in new or used record bins.<\/p>\n My second exposure to the duo was many years later, when I discovered their delightful 1976 single \u201cCome Out and Play,\u201d the title track on Rhino’s Come Out and Play: American Power Pop I (1975-1978)<\/em> compilation. With an infectious vibe that was equal parts distilled Beatles<\/strong> influence and bubblegum, it hit the sweet spot (if not the top of the charts).<\/p>\n But that was it, until now. But the intrepid archivists at Real Gone Music<\/a> have compiled all available Paley Brothers recordings onto a jam-packed 26-track CD called The Complete Recordings<\/em>. And it’s exactly that: the entire contents of the Sire LP, plus a Sire EP titled Ecstasy<\/em>, plus well more than a dozen other compilation-only or previously-unreleased tunes. There’s even a live cut from 1978, \u201cFelicia,\u201d recorded at Madison Square Garden when the Paleys opened for Shaun Cassidy<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Yes, you read that right: Shaun Cassidy. And that little fact may help to explain the situation within which The Paley Brothers found themselves. They were signed to a label hip enough to include The Ramones<\/strong> and Talking Heads<\/strong>, but bubblegum-sounding enough to earn (or \u201cearn\u201d) a slot as openers for the twee teen idol of the month.<\/p>\n The thing is, The Paley Brothers actually were \u2013 if not all things to all people \u2013 successful in both hip-quotient and candy-coated goodness. When they rocked hard, they rocked hard. When they took it a little softer, it worked, too. The brothers (who penned nearly all of their own material, with the odd cover such as Tommy Roe<\/strong>‘s \u201cSheila\u201d thrown in now and again) were adept at writing hooky, catchy tunes, and they paid attention in the studio as well. Andy would go on to become an in-demand producer and writer, working extensively with Brian Wilson<\/strong> (there’s a huge cache of unreleased material from those sessions) and most recently, co-writing the latest single<\/a> from Charleston’s wonderful Explorers Club<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n The Complete Recordings<\/em> even includes a track from their (surprise!) abortive sessions with Phil Spector<\/strong>, and an odd little ditty, a cover of \u201cTheme From Fireball X-L5<\/em>.\u201d The previously unreleased material holds its own alongside the Sire material. While powerpop never made the inroads its adherents had hoped, the highly-regarded (among those in the know, anyway) body of work from The Paley Brothers is highly recommended, and RGM has made discovering it easy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" File these guys under Music You Probably Missed. Chalk it up to record execs not knowing exactly what to do with The Paley Brothers, or perhaps assign some of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,19,49,51,55,62,64,65],"tags":[1642,1796,1965],"class_list":["post-4799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bubblegum","category-compilation","category-new-release","category-pop","category-powerpop","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","tag-paley-brothers","tag-real-gone-music","tag-sire","cat-12-id","cat-19-id","cat-49-id","cat-51-id","cat-55-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31811,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4799\/revisions\/31811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}