Pleasure Victim
Berlin
1982: Geffen 2-2036
If you don’t know Berlin’s “Sex (I’m a…)” you need to go hear it right now. It’s just one of the funniest songs we got out of the ’80s. In Walla Walla, where I grew up, it was one of those songs you knew about before you’d heard it anywhere, and then you heard it somewhere unusual before you had a clue where you could find a copy in a store. And back in those days there was likely only one shop that would ever carry it: Hot Poop, which was the source of most of my vinyl collection.
This is a fun and surprising album, with a multifaceted surface but deep too. But what any track of it evokes for me is the image of the cathedral in Milan, because at one point in my youth I spent countless hours listening to this on headphones while working on a jigsaw puzzle featuring that building (with a street fair/market in front). It’s an odd combination, I know.
“Masquerade,” “Tell Me Why,” “The Metro,” and “World of Smiles” are my favorite tracks from Pleasure Victim.
Comments © 2005 Mark Ellis Walker, except as noted, and no claim is made to the images and quoted lyrics.