Jon just reminded me that I promised someone some months ago in the comments section to the Philip Glass piece that I was going to put up Polyrock's "Romantic Me" at some point. Apologies for the lateness, but here it is.

Best known -- let's not kid ourselves, pretty much ENTIRELY known -- as the new wave band produced by Philip Glass and his engineer/right hand man Kurt Muncasi, Polyrock were an artsy sextet led by brothers Billy and Tommy Robertson. Their debut album came out on RCA in 1980, which as mentioned elsewhere here on Little Hits was pretty much a death knell for the band's commercial chances since there was no other major label more clueless about new wave music. Not that they were likely to go much of anywhere in 1980, anyway: in those pre-MTV times, the heartland just wasn't ready for the synthed-out pulses of this primarily electronic band, or for Billy Robertson's tightly wound, shrieking vocals and elliptical-to-the-point-of-meaningless lyrics. In light of current alternative-rock radio, however, Polyrock would be as big as the Killers if they debuted right now; half the bands played on WFNX here in Boston are -- probably unconsciously -- biting huge chunks of their sound directly off this one song.

Polyrock managed one more major-label album, 1981's Changing Hearts, an EP on the PVC label and an after the fact compilation of unfinished demos and live tracks that came out on the ROIR cassette label sometime in the mid-'80s. All of their material is in this style, and is all of similar quality; if you see it in the used bins, pick it up.

-Stewart Mason