Kid Creole and the Coconuts debut gets Sgt Pepper-like praise in the UK

Kid Creole and the Coconuts : Darrio...

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In July of 1980 Kid Creole and the Coconuts released Off The Coast Of Me, their debut album. Rising from the ashes of Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band ( "Cherchez La Femme") the zoot-suited August Darnell took the name Kid Creole. His three skimpily dressed back up singers became the Coconuts. They combined Latin, reggae, calypso, disco, rap and rock and, as you can see below, their live shows were glorious! Without the visuals, this debut suffers a bit but the UK press ate it up."It was reviewed like Sgt Pepper," says Darnell, who recalls virtually "living in NME", so frequently did he appear in it. 

Back in America, Robert Christgau gave the album a grade of B+ writing:

Reformed high school teacher August Darnell having split with black-sheep bro Stoney Browder, the music thins out--Dr. Buzzard's progressive retro is hard to top, Darnell's naturally sarcastic voice short on bottom. So the not exactly all-embracing "Calypso Pan-American" and "Off the Coast of Me" neither justify nor transcend their distanced tone (typically, the title tune affects a megaphone filter), while comedy numbers like "Bogota Affair" (the effete Creole as cuckold), "Mr. Softee" (the effete Creole as limp-dick), and "Darrio . . ." (the effete Creole as new-waver) are simple and strong. When clever means this clever, maybe we should settle.

And this from Smash Hits:

Kid Creole and the Coconuts would live up to their hype with the sophomore album Fresh Fruit in Foreign Places, which would make NME's top10 albums of 1981.