Well this is sad. Today, I'm posting my last Oingo Boingo album from the 80's.
The band wrapped up the era with 1987's Boi-ngo, and the last to feature keyboardist, Mike Bacich. By this point in time, Danny Elfman was big into film scoring, having gotten his start with Tim Burton's Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. By the end of 1988, he'd have ten films under his belt.
While most of the band supported him, there were some frictions from others, who thought he was more interested in films than the band. With even Danny Elfman saying that scoring films was more appealing than trying to maintain a successful rock band, while continuing to tour, it's understandable why they would think that. Ultimately, the band would continue on, with them even performing some of his scores at their shows.
Whether it was from Elfman's focus on scores, or the album as a whole just not appealing to critics, they often didn't, Boi-ngo didn't perform well upon its release. It would, however, peak higher on the album charts (at 77) than their more popular previous, and gold certified album, Dead Man's Party (which peaked at 98).
Personally, I think the album has quite a few good tracks, most of them, actually. So, I don't understand why it was met with such lackluster fanfare.
With that said, I would say where it suffers the most for me is once again what I mentioned during my review of Nothing To Fear (yesterday). My main exposure to a lot of these songs was on the later released Boingo Alive, which featured re-recorded "live" versions. As such, those became my go to over the originals. Still, I like the majority of this album as a whole, and in fact, only really skip one track when playing through it, that being Outrageous.
Ironically, two of the songs which made the final cut were actually recording during the sessions for Dead Man's Party. Those included, Not My Slave, and New Generation. On the other hand, there were several tracks recorded for this album which didn't make it to the final product. These included, Mama, Inside, Remember My Name, Cinderella Undercover, Tears Will Flow, and Find You. Additionally, the band would record the track, Happy, which was used for the forthcoming soundtrack to Summer School, but only credited to Elfman.
Oingo Boingo followed up Boi-ngo with the above noted double "live" album, Boingo Alive. While this massive tome of a compilation was recorded live, it was without an audience, delivering with it a high quality which could easily be mistaken as a studio recording. This was followed in 1989 by the true greatest hits, The Best of Oingo Boingo: Skeletons in the Closet.
The band entered the 90's as a solid eight piece for Dark at the End of the Tunnel (1990), and increased to ten members for their final studio album, 1994's Boingo. This was followed up by a massive farewell tour, which concluded in 1995, and was released as their final live album in 1996, Farewell: Live from the Universal Amphitheatre, Halloween 1995. To date, this has been followed by two additional compilations. While Elfman has continued to pursue both scoring films, and releasing the occasional studio album, there have been no reunion tours to date of Oingo Boingo.
On that note, my journey through their 80's discography comes to an end. They remain one of my favorite bands of the era, and are among the few which I boast a full discography of, and even like their material from the 90's.
As for Elfman's continued solo career, I found his 2021 released Big Mess to be a bit of a misstep. It's dark tone, focusing on how much the pandemic and government suck really wasn't what was needed at the time. I recall a lot of people reviewing it saying that they listened to music to escape life, and didn't want to be discouraged and brought down by it, which is what Big Mess ultimately did to people.
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS December 12, 1981 |
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| THIS WEEK ON THE CHARTS December 12, 1987 |
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