Song Review - Who Says by Device

It's been a while since I've done this, and I figure the best way to make a comeback to this blog is with a throwback to my first entry - Device. I've done a bit more research about these guys and their keyboardist/songwriter Holly Knight since my first entry, because of the same kind of curiosity that lead me to discover countless bands and artists. To quote the guy Harry Callahan threatened with that famous 'did I shoot six shots or only five' line, "I gots to know."

That's how I found their other video for a song called Who Says. It's quintessential eighties trash rock, and it is glorious.

This video might be obscure as hell, but it's a defining one of the era. It had everything.

It was shot in a warehouse. There are random spotlights all over. For some reason, there's some hot girl wearing a sweatshirt wandering through a parking garage. Every guy here has a magnificently awful blonde mullet. Holly Knight is playing a keytar. A friggin' keytar, for God's sake. And the fashion is horrendous.

The guitarist is wearing denim with a scarf around his neck. The lead singer is wearing leather chaps over his denim - LEATHER CHAPS. Holly Knight is wearing a tight one piece spandex thing with a jacket that doesn't look like it has any way of closing, and it doesn't even go any lower than her stomach. The drummer is wearing a sleeveless black button up shirt. The kicker there? Holly Knight was credited for providing 'programming,' which I assume means drum machine programming. There was no drummer credited on the album. They just found a guy with a mullet and sat him down at the skins for this video because... I have no idea why.

The best part of this? The singer. Initially, I thought his voice sounded familiar. I brushed this off because it's sort of the generic eighties singer voice. Then I looked up the album's credits on the All Music Guide and found out that the singer is Paul Engemann. It's certainly not a household name, but he does have one very well known song.

Holy shit, it's the Push it to the Limit guy. I'm kicking myself for not finding this out for the first entry on this blog.

This is a great one of the best pieces of eighties rock I've come across. It's cheesy and stupid, sure, but it was written by Holly Knight and sung by the same voice that did Push it to the Limit. The album was produced by Mike Chapman, who was pretty much the Holly Knight of the seventies. You shouldn't expect smart music from these people. You'll get catchy, listenable and very memorable music from them, though.

Unfortunately, Device split up after one album, and this and Hanging on a Heart Attack are the only videos they put out. It's a shame because these videos are great fodder for me and this blog. But I can take solace in the fact that Holly Knight was a very prolific songwriter. There will be more songs with her songwriting credits on here, you can count on that. It would be unavoidable even if I was trying not to - she's that prolific. But I won't avoid her work. Not just because it's perfect for this blog, but because I really like her work. I'm a fan.