The Lost Boys: Hard-To-Find ’80s Albums (Tommy Tutone’s “National Emotion”)

“The Lost Boys: Hard-To-Find ’80s Albums” gives you exactly what the title implies: a rare or out-of-print album from the ’80s in its entirety. Some will be from CD, but most will have been lovingly transferred from pristine vinyl culled directly from the Analog Kid’s vast collection. Whatever album I choose, it will be one that you can’t easily find a physical copy for sale on Amazon or in your local record store (if you even have one anymore). Death…by stereo!

The Analog Kid is back!

Well, technically I never left. But I haven’t posted in a long time, and there were a number of reasons for my absence. First and foremost, I can be kind of lazy about lots of things. That statement usually does NOT apply to anything musical in my life, but in this instance I must admit my guilt. However, the second reason that I haven’t been posting was the direct cause of my laziness: my ripping system has been down for MONTHS.

That’s right: I haven’t ripped a record since last September. THE HORROR.

Sure, I could have posted some old rips that I had yet to share, or featured an out-of-print CD or two (or twenty). But I’ve been so frustrated with my inability to rip vinyl that I just sort of shut down my blog brain.

Oh, by the way: reason #3 for my extended absence is that I’m 50 years old and my wife is about to have our first baby. As Joe Walsh once said, “HEY MAN, I’M FREAKIN’ OUT!!”

Well, I’m happy to report that things have stabilized in the Analog Kid universe. I’ve been doing some paid writing gigs, and that has helped to ease my brain back into the blogging zone. My wife and unborn child are doing well (knock on wood), and my level of freak-out has been reduced. And lastly, my vinyl ripping system is back up and sounding better than ever!

As I mentioned earlier, I haven’t ripped anything since last September. It was at that time that a phantom electrical buzz took over my system. It would come and go, but when it was there it was awful. I have a background in QA, so I troubleshooted my ass off and simply could not track down the issue. My friend (and generous site benefactor) John even took all of the gear to his house, where he proceeded to disassemble/clean/replace and reassemble the parts. On his last test at his house….NO BUZZ. We reassembled the system back at my place, and…you guessed it…HUGE BUZZ.

It was beyond frustrating.

For the past two months, the equipment just sat there untouched. I avoided it because I knew that if I started tinkering with it, I’d go down that rabbit hole and wouldn’t stop until the problem was eliminated. Of course, the big issue with that is that I had already tried everything I knew. Or had I? Hmmm…

Earlier this week, I finally reassembled the gear in a different room. It’s nowhere near any other electrical items. The turntable stands alone on a desk. The preamp has a new adapter. And still– BUZZ BUZZ. But this time I made an interesting discovery– if I touched the ground cable at the source (either on the back of the turntable or at the input on the preamp), the buzz disappeared. Of course, I knew it was a grounding issue all along– but now I had an idea of how to fix it (and no, holding my finger on the ground cable while I rip a 20-minute album side was never a viable option).

After much tinkering and tightening, I was finally able to create a stable ground with no buzz. I have ripped three albums in the last three days, and the buzz has yet to return. Keep your fingers crossed for me, my friends– if it comes back, I can’t be held responsible for my actions.

So, long story short: I finally have a brand new vinyl rip to share with you! The first record that I pulled out of my ripping pile was 1983’s National Emotion, the third album from Tommy Tutone. It was released in 1983, and peaked at #179 on the Billboard Top 200 album chart. With the band coming off the massive hit “867-5309/Jenny,” to say that National Emotion was a major flop would be a severe understatement.

But as usual, the Analog Kid is not interested in sales– only quality. No, National Emotion isn’t as good as Tommy Tutone, their fabulous 1980 debut. But to my ears, it blows away the album that gave us “Jenny” (Tommy Tutone-2). The truth is that I don’t think I had ever played this record before, because if I had I would have remembered a song as great as “Get Around Girl.”

Do me a favor: if you listen to nothing else on this post, please check out “Get Around Girl.” It’s simply a killer power-pop tune, and I must have played it at least twenty times in the past two days. There are some other great songs on the record as well, and I’m very happy that I can feature this long out-of-print (and never released on CD) record here on The Analog Kid Blog.

Oh, one last thing: while examining the inner sleeve for National Emotion, I said to myself, “Hey– I know that guy!” “That guy” is bass player Gregg Sutton, who I met a few times in the mid-to-late ’80s when he played bass for Lone Justice. Gregg also co-wrote “Breathe,” one of my all-time favorite songs from Maria McKee. I would have never guessed that he was once a member of Tommy Tutone.

It’s good to be back, my friends. I’m ripping another album as I type this, so I promise you that new posts are right around the corner. Thanks for sticking with me!