Retro Spins: The Time - Pandemonium

The majority of my exposure to The Time is via Prince's Purple Rain and Graffiti Bridge. While I'm sure in 2023 I wrote a post about an 80's The Time album, the truth of the matter is I wrote all the 2024 posts before any of those. This makes Panedmonium the first album from The Time I've actually heard.

Panemonium starts out on a really strong note, and I found myself really enjoying the album title track of the same name, Jerk Out and Blondie. However, that's were things really stopped for me. As the album kept going, I was expecting to hear something as good as what these first few tracks offered, but it never came. I even went back when the album was done and played sections of the aforementioned songs to make sure I did actually enjoy them just to be sure. I did.

So, what happened? Why did the tracks suddenly drop off for me?

I think part of it was that the remaining songs turned more serious in tone from that of the ones I mentioned before. That niche comedy styling that The Time has become known for just wasn't there for these remaining tracks.

Additionally, I think the album suffers from the same issue a lot of albums from the 90's do - It's too long. At one hour five minutes, that's just too much material for any record. Some of the best albums I've ever heard have been around the thirty-five to forty minute mark. I think this "forces" musicians to pack in only the strongest of their tracks, while leaving the filler out.

I'm pretty disappointed that Pandimonium set the bar so high when it first started, but then continued to lower and lower and lower and lower the bar until it was dragging on the ground. I really had high hopes based on my first impression.

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Retro Spins: The Time - Ice Cream Castle

I'd been intrigued with The Time since first seeing them in Prince's Purple Rain, but never really bothered digging into them. I then got reintroduced to them in 1990 when they appeared not only on the album soundtrack, but in the film, Graffiti Bridge - Another Prince movie. Despite enjoying their music from the film, I still never bothered to dig any deeper into them.

It wasn't until 2019 that the band would once again get on my radar, and this time I would rectify ignoring them for almost thirty-five years. In one fell swoop, I nabbed up four of their five albums; 1981's The Time, 1982's What Time Is It, 1984's Ice Cream Castle and 1990's Pandemonium. Truth be told, Ice Cream Castle was really the only one on my "want" list, but I figured I'd go ahead and just take the plunge when the opportunity arose out of the blue.

When I first played Ice Cream Castle, I actually didn't really have any intentions of listening to it. I really just wanted to sample some sounds for a few seconds to see if it was going to have potential. I clicked on track two, My Drawers, and immediately got hooked on the guitar riff. After making it about halfway through the song, I decided I'd just go back to the beginning of the album and have a full play. I'm glad I did.

The album opens with the title track, Ice Cream Castle, and oddly enough, out of all the songs on this disc, it's the one of the two I didn't care for. From there, it went into three great back to back tracks. Of course, I've already mentioned My Drawers. This was followed up by the incredibly funny spoken track, Chili Sauce, then the song Jungle Love - The song I actually wanted the album for in the first place.

Track five, If The Kid Can't Make You Come, was the second track I didn't particularly care for. However, track six, which was the last track on the album, aimed to please with The Bird.

Overall, I really like Ice Cream Castle (the album), and I look forward to digging in more to The Time. It's a shame it's taken so many years to find out what I've been missing, but hey, better late than never.

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