Rocktrospectiva: The Mainstream Outstanding "Katrina And The Waves" Turns 40

 

Released on 22 March 1985 "Katrina And The Waves" was the third studio album by the US/English new wave outfit of the same name. It was their first album on a major label, and a Top 30 hit in the US and the UK. The majority of tracks were re-mixed and overdubbed versions of songs that had appeared on their first two albums. The record spawned four singles the top ten hit "Walking In Sunshine", "Red Wine And Whisky", "Do You Want Crying" and "Que Te Quiero".

Between 1983 and 1984, English-based Katrina and the Waves released their first two albums and enjoyed some airplay success in Canada as well as a chart position on the UK Singles Chart with "Que Te Quiero" peaked at No. 84, helped by intensive touring and the added mystique of their releases being on import in England and the United States, the band's reputation was growing. And when the Bangles covered "Going Down to Liverpool", a song from Katrina and the Waves' first album, major record labels started to take an interest. This eventually led to signing a deal with Capitol Records in Los Angeles.

The band decided to re-record, overdub or remix ten tracks from the two Canadian albums for their Capitol debut. But the label wanted to make some of the songs more single-worthy, particularly "Going Down to Liverpool" and "Walking on Sunshine", so the band did some recording and mixing in London with producer Pat Collier, who had worked on their first two albums, the band kept redoing it nonstop." and also added a horn section, which the original 1983 version didn't have. Katrina Leskanich said in 2015, "As we were recording it, an arranger wandered in and said: "You should put horns on that." And he hummed what became that pumping melody. But the horn section we got in whinged so much about how hard it was to play that we had to drop the key just for them."

Ultimately, Capitol decided to outsource a remix, and the tracks were given to engineer Scott Litt at the Power Station in New York. The band arrived from London with Collier to meet with their new label and to be in New York while Litt mixed the album. Due to a problem with the drum tracks for "Walking on Sunshine", Litt had to re-record the drums at the Power Station. When drummer Alex Cooper had finished his work in a couple of takes, All of a sudden the song exploded. As soon as the drums were done, that spurred us on to do more. I was flying guitars around. That was a stroke of genius. He was a great producer, getting the sound right. Litt also re-arranged parts in the song, like holding the horns out of the first chorus, and Leskanich's "Woo," which was somewhere else in the song, was put in after the drum intro. "Scott absolutely made that track," Collier said. "He took it in hand and made it what it is."

According to Leskanich, "Walking on Sunshine" was never meant to be the album's first single, as Capitol originally wanted to go with the disto intense "Do You Want Crying". "Capitol sent out a sampler of four tracks and all the DJs said, "It's the "Sunshine" song because we can talk over the intro and it's got the right energy for summer," When the song was released as a single in March 1985, it charted all over Europe, the US, Canada and Australia.

The album had two other great singles, the vibrant and powerful "Red Wine And Whisky" and the re-recorde version of "Que Te Quiero", a tricky new version of "Machine Gun Smith", and obviously "Going Down To Liverpool" although for certain critics, this new version lost its charm with and overheated arrangement, the new aggressive power pop style of most of the song helped the mainstream success of the album called an essential purchase back then.

 

Katrina And The Waves Track List:

 

1. Red Wine And Whisky

2. Do You Want Crying

3. Que Te Quiero

4. Machine Gun Smith

5. Cry For Me

6. Walking On Sunshine

7. Going Down To Liverpool

8. Mexico

9. The Sun Won't Shine Without You

10. The Game Of Love