I never liked the Bay City Rollers. When I was an elementary schooler they were equivalent to One Direction — the slick, poppy band that all the girls screamed about. They were haircuts and matching outfits, not a band.
My opinion hasn’t improved over the years, thanks to my complete lack of Bay City Rollers nostalgia, so you’re right to question why I have 1979’s Elevator in my stacks. This was one of the first albums I purchased solely for the cruddy album cover. I remember stumbling across this one in the dollar bin sometime in the mid-eighties and finding the lads’ attempt to reinvent themselves as serious musicians too funny to pass up: the name change, the giant pill just in case the name was too subtle for us to get their heavy message.
Nobody fell for it. They’d lost their old fans because that’s what happens with boy bands, and no self-respecting music geek was going to fall for a bullshit name change. It’s kind of a shame, because Elevator really isn’t a bad stab at a power pop album. Think Cheap Trick or The Knack: that’s the sweet spot that this album targeted, and it came pretty damn close.
Want to give it a shot? You should still be able to pick up a copy for a buck. Happy hunting.
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Categories: From the Stacks, Music
Why It Matters 
And some people wonder where grunge plaid came from…
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It all makes sense now….
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Count me in on your dislike of the Rollers. Couldn’t stand them.
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Total trash 🙂
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Very interesting read. My daughter is currently a “Directioner” and I wonder how they’ll be able to transition into real music one day.
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My daughter was too, for a while. Then she heard The Beatles and tore down her Harry Styles posters. Daddy’s so proud (sniff sniff).
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I wouldn’t call myself a fan, as I never owned an album or sought them out in any way. But damn, if I can’t still sing along to Saturday Night. “I-I -I-I just can’t wait….I-I-I-I got
a date!”
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I loved the band when I was young. I guess I was 5 when their first album came out. They got better as they started writing more of their own songs, firing two song writing teams. By Dedication and It’s a Game Eric had some serious song writing chops but he was no longer writing pop. I did not like this album when it first came out at all as I thought it was a faux New Wave album but I drank a bunch of beer and smoked some the other night and finally truly enjoyed it. Side one at least is rather fantastic. They were just doing their own weird thing. It’s not that the album is hard to get into like Captain Beefheart maybe – it’s that it sounds a lot more simple than it truly is.
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