All Four One

Artist: The Motels
Label: Capitol
Category: Music

Average customer rating:

Format: Original recording reissued
Media: Audio CD
Number Of Discs: 1

UPC: 724352069620
EAN: 0724352069620
ASIN: B00000JCFV

Release Date: 1999-06-29

All Four One

Related Categories:

Punk

| Hardcore & Punk | Alternative Rock | Styles | Music

American Punk

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New Wave

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General

| Pop | Styles | Music

Pop Rock

| Pop | Styles | Music

General

| Rock | Styles | Music

Tracks:

Mission Of Mercy
Take The L
Only The Lonely
Art Fails
Change My Mind
So L.A.
Tragic Surf
Apocalypso
He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)
Forever Mine
Bonus Track: So L.A. (Apocalypso Version)
Bonus Track: Schneekin (Apocalypso Version)
Bonus Track: Mission Of Mercy (Apocalypso Version)
Bonus Track: Who Could Resist That Face (Apocalypso Version)
Bonus Track: Only The Lonely (Live)

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Customer Reviews:

All Four One and One Four This CD.......2007-04-11

All Four One, is the most popular and successful album that was released by The Motels, and likely so since the band actually had two shots at making it. In the fall of 1981, Capitol Records set up the Motels with producer Val Garay, who had just come off the highly successful Kim Carnes Mistaken Identity album ("Bette Davis Eyes") and with some inner turmoil in the band, Martha hired a few new guys and the producer set up a few session men to help fill out the sound for what would be the Motels' third album Apocalypso. As it turned out, that third album didn't really get the release it was supposed to and everyone had to go back and re-record in order to come up with an album Capitol Records would release. All Four One would be released in April of 1982 and end up reaching #16 on the pop charts, helped along by the hit single "Only The Lonely" - the definitive in Martha's spooky ethereal divaness. The album also launched two more singles, "Take The L", with its so simple it's utterly fabulous finding that if you take the l out of lover it's over, and the boppy pop of "Forever Mine". Both singles scored on the top 100 and probably received more airplay than sales since the album was being bought up left and right.

The rest of the tracks on All Four One, are the ones that really blow my mind. I've had both versions of this CD re-release in my catalog over the years. One Way Recording released it on CD around 1995 and then this Expanded Edition came out in 1999 that included 4 of the Apocalypso session songs. As the years go by, I find myself going back to this album over and over. Though I have to admit it wasn't until a recent relistening that I really got into it, and haven't stopped listening since. Where I used to think Careful was a profound stop on the Motels tour, I now believe All Four One is their very best album.

The darkness and allure that would've been found on Apocalypso isn't completely gone from All Four One. The moodiness of the hit single is just one instance of this, but add in the surf scare sounds of "Tragic Surf" and a cover of the Crystals strangely alluring "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss)" and you get the Shangri-La's going new wave. It's hard not to feel the venom of Martha's sting when she's singing such `carefree' songs of death and domestic violence. "Art Fails" is another crowning achievement in the Motels repatoire, with its new wave jaunty back beat and Martha pleading, "I don't want you to see me this way." There's also the title track of that misbegotten album with the jungle rhythms, off kilterness of "Apocalypso" - "they dance all night at Love Café/ Gina finds it very good that way/ no day/ no tomorrow/ all the children making love out of sorrow..." Martha is a supreme lyricist and her takes on foreboding love and city life attach themselves right into my psyche.

Of course nowhere is she more evident about singing the city life than in "So L.A." another moody track that tells the tragic story of LA life - "Jimmy cracked when he came out here/ his precious dream was never clear/ though he practiced it a thousand times/ the city should've been his that night/ but the man on the corner got something new/ and something new is good for you tonight!" It's always been one of my favorite Motels songs.

There's even moody jazz thrown in, with the ballady "Change My Mind" and the opener of the album is a song that inspired me to write a song for my band Swivek called "Mouth" - the straight up new wave rock of "Mission Of Mercy" - "He didn't say where he was goin' but he left in such a hurry/ saying something about a mission of mercy/ mama hasn't been sleeping well at all/ as she lays stretched out in the hall/ waiting for him to call..."

Though Capitol released All Four One as an expanded edition including some of the Apocalypso tracks, the CD is way out of print and they didn't include a number of songs they could have so Capitol should really hop on it and release it as a true expanded edition with all the Apocalypso songs including the super cool "Surrender", "Lost But Not Forgotten" and the original "Only The Lonely."

Martha's voice & songs + sessionmen & brillant producer.......2005-04-04

I love this album and its' expanded edition,though some will debate whether it was true to the group's sound.The truth is,that the group's first two albums weren't commercially successful in the U.S.A.,and that a third album that the group recorded wasn't acceptable to Capitol,and wasn't released.The problem wasn't so much in the songs,but in the arrangements.But producer Val Garay(formerly an engineer for Linda Ronstadt) came up with a brilliant idea:get some very slick L.A. sessionmen to fine tune the arrangements,and replace the group members on the instrumental tracks in the studio,leaving the group members the simpler task of immitating the newly improved arrangements onstage.When Garay was asked about the use of sessionmen in an interview with the(long-defunct) magazine "Modern Recording and Music",he said "Maybe they'll be ready(to play) next time",which obviously humiliated the group.Still,the hits(and the use of sessionmen) continued for the remainder of the group's association with Garay.Without Garay and the sessionmen,the hits stopped.Now,some of the songs from the scrapped album "Apocalypso" debut as bonus tracks(including early versions of "So L.A." & "Mission of Mercy" played by the group),and you also get a live version of "Only The Lonely",where the group tries to approximate the studio version that they didn't play on(for the group's original studio version from the "Apocalypso" sessions,see the group's outtakes album "Anthologyland").What Val Garay did in the studio(to get the group hit albums & singles) was correct.Martha Davis(with whomever backs her singing and writing) IS "The Motels"

I Played This Record So Much My Mother Didn't Have To!.......2002-07-31

Only until just recently, I owned this album on vinyl only! I was just a little kid back when this was released and purchaced by my mother. I still remember sitting on the living room floor listening to it with headphones. I would just stare at her picture until, yeah it is to this day burned into my memory. I knew all the lyrics by heart. As I got older, I began to worry about something happening to my record. I tried not to think about how I would cope if I lost the ability to hear all the songs that have meant so much...Then it was finally available on CD format, I was estatic! Only the Lonely, and Take the L are the big hits from the day, but my favorites then as a kid and now have remained the same. Mission of Mercy, Art Fails, Change My Mind, So L.A., Tragic Surf, and Apocalypso are just perfect! They will always remind me of being a kid, a not-so-distant past when vinyl used to spin; playing music meant you had to pay attention because in order to hear the entire thing the record had to be flipped. Which added another dimention to it; which side of the album first would I pick? Someday, I am going to cover either Art Fails or Change My Mind! "Cause the man on the corner got something new and something new is good for you, today!" What else is needed to say...

ALMOST GOT IT RIGHT.......2001-02-04

" All Four One " is one of the twenty best rock albums of all time. The Motels had a timeless style like The Doors and sound of the cd is outstanding with the added bonus tracks are a plus. My only complaint is the " Full" hot sexy photo of Martha from the original inside album packaging (which matched the outside cover art) is only a partial. Capitol you almost got it right. I also have the " One Way" cd version which does have the picture, but the sound quality is average at best.

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