CoronaVinyl Day 363 (C): Marshall Crenshaw by Marshall Crenshaw

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "C," and I listened to Marshall Crenshaw's 1982 self-titled debut album.

Crenshaw is a singer-songwriter who had been playing John Lennon in the national touring production of the musical Beatlemania in the late '70s.  During that time, he was writing his own songs, many of which would end up on his debut album.

The album is mainly a trio, with Crenshaw on guitar and lead vocals, his brother Robert on bass, and Chris Donato on drums.  It's a mixture of power pop, rock, and non-power pop, and I enjoyed it.  Crenshaw was heavily influenced by Buddy Holly and other late '50s rockers, and he wears those influences on his sleeve on this album.

The album went to #50 on the Billboard album chart, making it his highest-charting album.  The song "Someday, Someway" was his highest-charting song in the U.S., reaching #36 on the Billboard Hot 100.  Rolling Stone would later rank the album as #72 on its Top 100 Albums of the '80s.

The group and Crenshaw's '50s influences didn't just stop at their music.  They played the band in the 1986 flashback film Peggy Sue Got Married, and Crenshaw played Buddy Holly in the Ritchie Valens biopic La Bamba released that same year.

Crenshaw continued to make music relatively regularly until the late aughts, wrote the title track for the 2007 John C. Reilly film Walk Hard, and hosted a radio show in New York from 2011 to 2017.  He also co-wrote the Gin Blossoms' 1996 hit "Til I Hear It From You."  He continues to play live a few dozen times a year.  Spotify didn't have this album, so I just embedded a "best of" album that has four of the songs from the album.

Favorite Song on Side 1:  "Someday, Someway"
I can see why this was Crenshaw's biggest hit.  It's a catchy power pop song that harkens late '50s rock.

Favorite Song on Side 2:  "Cynical Girl"
This is a song that's kind of reaction to mass culture, about wanting a girl who thinks critically.  It also very much reminds me of something that could have been released in the early to mid '90s.