Noiseworks - Love verses Money

 

Noiseworks wrote some undisputed Australian pub rock classics.  Their first two albums walked close enough to the line of “generic rock” to be popular with the masses, but were far enough away from that line to be interesting.  Melodic rock songs like No Lies and Take Me Back will be played wherever drunk young Aussie’s congregate until the end of days. 

 

I wouldn’t say that Love vs Money walks a bit too close to the generic rock line as much as it has both feet planted on the line and doesn’t step away from it at all.  It doesn’t budge from generic rock even one inch.   

 

I’m not sure if the title is supposed to be ironic or some uber-cool nod to knowing cool saying that “hey, we know we’re being sexist, but we’re cool enough to get away with it” type thing (yes I’m clutching at straws), but the story that I heard about the song Hot Chili Woman was that the guitarist and the bass player wanted to get some studio time, but their management wouldn’t give it to them unless they wrote a song about cars and girls.  So, they whipped up Hot Chili Woman in about 5 minutes. The song writers were embarrassed by the song and, frankly, even back when I was a callow youth, I thought the song was stupid and sexist and not very good.  It hasn’t improved with age.  What would I know, though?  The song earned the band their equal highest charting single (along with Take Me Back).  So maybe listening to management is a good thing.   

 

Anyway, I always thought that Noiseworks were a pretty decent pub rock band.  They wrote some catchy songs.  This album, however, isn’t their finest work.