Search - Motels :: All Four One

Checking in at the Five Star Motels

Tim Brough | Springfield, PA United States | 01/05/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It is one of those stories that became all too prevalent in the 80's; decent band is forced to compromise for stardom. Martha Davis and The Motels suddenly found themselves on the brink of stardom, and their record company didn't like the album they had prepared. An ultimatum was issued - go back into the studio with a producer of Capitol's choosing and his session hacks for a redo or no deal. The band swallowed hard (and nearly disintegrated). Val Garay (who had worked on the original sessions) delivered the keyboard dominated new sessions and "All Four One" was the result.



The final album treads a very fine line between arena rock and the edgy, arty new-wave the first two Motels albums were focused on. Only "Art Fails" and "Apocalypso" (the original album titles) sound like they came from that period. But the polished up Motels also brought lead singer Martha Davis into an even sharper focus, making the torchy "Only The Lonely" into the band's signature hit. The other two radio draws here; "Mission of Mercy" and "Take The L," pulled down radio play and established not only the Motels, but the crossover sound of safe New Wave. As such, "All Four One" is a classic album from the early 80's, helping to usher in a new sound.



There were also a pair of surprises here. Martha turned jazzy for the haunting "Change Your Mind," a major departure for The Motels' albums. The second was the inclusion of an obscure but controversial Carole King/Gerry Goffin song that Phil Spector produced for The Crystals. An ambiguously angry song about relationship abuse (or a cheeky ode to SM, take your pick), the original song was released as a single and subsequently blacklisted from radio. It makes its selection as a cover on "All Four One" all the odder, seeing as the band was fighting Capitol to record an album that would be commercially more viable than the "Apocalypso" sessions had yielded. As such, it was pretty much a backhand to the suits and helped The Motels maintain a semblance of edge.



Granted, the sudden success made the band all the more eager to stay safe (Little Robbers is almost a carbon copy of this and even cleaner). However, there are still plenty of reasons to like "All Four One." And that begs the question; why is this CD and The Motels' library out of print? With "Careful" and "Little Robbers" asking for $50 per used copy, maybe someone at Capitol needs to dig those masters back out."

All Four One and One Four This CD

Bradley Jacobson | 04/10/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"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.""

All for a lot more than the last time I checked, and worth i

lighten_up_already2 | Kirkland, WA USA | 09/11/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I just love it when a CD I bought a couple of years ago for straight retail is all of a sudden selling used for way more than I paid for it. And for good reason. This is one of the great iconic recordings of the 1980s. I really can't add much to what others have written, except that I can't think of any other CD in my whole collection where the bonus tracks just blew me away and made me realize how underappreciated this band was in its heyday.



I do hope this CD is reissued some day so anyone who wants it can afford it, but the used ones cost money for a reason."