Can You Hear the American Beat?

The Beat : Walking Out On Love

[Purchase]

In the fall of 1979, The Beat released its self-titled debut album on CBS Records. It has since been lauded as one of the great power pop albums of all time thanks to songs like "Walking Out on Love". Touring to support a major label release (produced by Bruce Botnick who worked on Love's Forever Changes and The Doors' L.A. Woman) was the highlight of the band's career:

"Well the first tours with The Beat where pretty great," Collins tells punkglobe.com. "We were on a major label with big time management so we felt like rock stars pretty much all the time. We did a great tour with Ian Gomm and then we did a tour with The Jam! After that, we toured Europe and played shows with The Police, The Specials and too many other bands to remember but it was a blast!"

Collins' power-pop roots go deep. He was the drummer in The Nerves with Peter Case and Jack Lee, who wrote the Blondie hit "Hanging On The Telephone" for the trio's 1976 EP.  For his new band, Collins grabbed some of his Nerves tunes, handed the drumsticks to Michael Ruiz and played rhythm guitar and sang.

"We're just four guys playing music,"  Collins says in the 1979 press release for the album.  "No trickery, no bullshit, just rock 'n roll. It's a whole new ball game now. All of a sudden, people who had their fingers on the pulse of what was going on - no longer do. All of a sudden, groups that were the definition of the times - no longer are... It's a big toss-up. What we're doing is no big deal to us, we're doing what comes to us naturally, the difference is that we're not trying to be the stuff that's going on now. We think we are what should be now."

The Beat's debut is full of gorgeous pop melodies. "You Won't Be Happy" is just one among a handful of pure ear worms on the album.  The critics were about to be inundated with new wave bands, but this one still stood out. Robert Christgau gave the album a B,  writing 

 In which the Ramones clean up their act and/or the Knack stop smirking. Very nice boys, very intense, twelve songs in half an hour, never stop, drive all over the place, aren't coming home tonight, wanna find a rock and roll girl, don't fit in (but will).

Trouser Press says :

The Beat (issued prior to the name conflict with the English Beat) is simple, satisfying power pop, all meat and no filler. If anything, though, it's a little too no-frills, with unimaginative production; the lack of idiosyncrasy and variation gives it a monotonous feel.

David Hepworth of Smash Hits waited until the Spring of 1980 to write:

Another example of the beat band renaissance going on in America in the wake of recent successes of bands like The Knack and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. While this is neither as calculated as the former nor as seductive as the latter, it is very well put together, light and elegant, and features what must be a hit single in "Don't Wait Up For Me". (6/10)

The Beat would become Paul Collins' Beat to avoid confusion with The English Beat and record a second album before going on a musical journey involving multiple sidemen and near misses. Collins has a busy website where he is heralded as The King Of Power Pop.