Auditory Abominations: "She's a Beauty" - The Tubes

The 80s is a strange decade for music, for the rock and metal scene there is very little better than the 80s, giving us many masterpieces of rock and metal from "Master of Puppets" to "Tom Sawyer". This decade also gave us the Mainstream Rock Charts so now there was a way to keep track of the popular rock songs. This is where it gets weird, as on these charts, not every song that topped it was a rock song. I already talked about "We Built This City" and the dated keyboard dominated sound of the 1980s, but there was also "Down Under" and "Twilight Zone". In short, the 80s was an amazing decade for the rock and metal scene, but there was still a lot of crap, and here is another one.

The Tubes were a rock band that formed in the 1970s with their first single dropping in 1976 and they have been going steady since. Now I said rock band and for a while The Tubes were, but the 1980s was the decade of selling out, I mean a lot of bands pretty much gave up what they were and tried to become mainstream successes. The rock charts were impressive but AC/DC wasn't topping the charts, so a lot of it was that keyboard dominated rock. I guess a lot of it had to do with the success of synth pop at the time with Genesis and Eurythmics, and music always followed the popular styles, hence a lot of the pop-tronic music nowadays. Of course, I wasn't there so I can't say I'm an expert, but I do have a good idea.

So I can't really blame the band, this was just the soundscape of the time, and for opening instrumentals, I have heard much worse. The synth is a little annoying, but the drums and guitar aren't bad. The opening vocals aren't terrible either.

So if I think that the instruments and vocals aren't bad, why is this song an auditory abomination? Mostly it's the lyrics, they're just confusing. I mean, they say that the women you see are from your dreams, but you shouldn't fall in love with them. Is this song a cautionary tune about giving your heart up to fast? Well, at one point the lead singer says "Don't touch the merchandise" so is this about a brothel? Is the song trying to give confidence to a kid? I have no clue what these lyrics say, if it is a song about not giving your heart away too quickly, than it's basically saying, don't fall in love with that pretty woman there because she is a beauty.

I don't get the point of this song, nor why it was a hit on the rock charts. It really does show that even with some good aspects, one bad apple spoils the whole patch. even if the lyrics weren't confusing I think the song would still be a bit dated, but I wouldn't be talking about it then. I try not to review songs that are only outdated, because they really do require me to have been there for me to really consider it. I'd say this and "We Built This City" came close to breaking that rule.

I'm the Entity of Darkness and I think I need to pick a more interesting level of bad next time.