Sound Check — Geoff Carter: There is No Doubt about ‘Return to Saturn’ album

Friday, May 26, 2000 | 8:53 a.m.

Geoff Carter's music column appears Fridays. Reach him at carter@vegas.com

One of the things about the young generation that truly freaks me out is its unconditional embrace of 1980s music and culture. Show me a 21-year old girl who loves Duran Duran, Cyndi Lauper and Kajagoogoo, and I'll show you a girl who never knew Reagan.

Even as we listened to that stuff, we knew it wasn't real. Hell, that's what's attracted us to it -- the pop music of the '80s went down easier than punk, and the thin, metallic aftertaste it left on our palates could be easily washed away by stuffing more Culture Club down our cakeholes. There's broccoli and there's chocolate chip cookies: you just name the last time you ate an entire bag of broccoli in one sitting while watching VH1.

No Doubt's new record "Return of Saturn" is one fierce bag of 1983-vintage tollhouse. Candy-haired diva Gwen Stefani may declare "I'm full of artificial sweetener," but there's enough sugar in "Saturn" to rot every last tooth out of your head inside of an hour.

That's good and bad. "Saturn" plays as a matter-of-fact platinum album -- roiling new wave beats and synthesizer treatments, sterile Glen Ballard production, and lyrics drawn from a 16-year-old's angst-ridden composition book. "Six Feet Under" condenses all mortality and awareness into a 2 1/2-minute bop more infectious than Ebola. Every other song is a ballad -- which is to say, every other song is a possible hit.

But it's a strange set. Anyone who's done this the first time out -- Generations X and Y, you hear me knockin' -- will be left cold by this summertime Saturnalia. By the time Stefani murmurs "I'm tired from exploring you" in "Dark Blue," you should be in full agreement, and ready for some of that broccoli.

Other bands have walked this historical line with greater success: the now-defunct That Dog, for one. Look up that band's "Retreat from the Sun" and hear what "Return of Saturn" might have been without VH1's Reagan-less sugarcoating to encourage it.

The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, on the other hand, continue to impress with their dogged devotion to style and form. "Pay Attention" is the aural equivalent of bed-head and beard stubble -- geeky, yet tough and uncompromising.

Let's put it in John Hughes terms. Imagine the Bosstones' gravel-voiced vocalist Dicky Barrett on a blind date with Stefani, one set up by mutual friends. She's annoyed and dreaming aloud of Pouty Boy (that exchange student Gavin Rossdale), but while she's spouting her saccharine verse, he's kicking the bottom of the table: "Let me rant and let me ramble/you're looking at a lunatic in shambles."

Imagine how much better "Pretty in Pink" would have been if Jon Cryer had laid Andrew McCarthy flat. And be honest: as cute and poignant as Molly Ringwald was in "The Breakfast Club," Judd Nelson's miscreant seemed much more real. And he had all the good lines. Every last one.

That's what "Pay Attention" feels like: the rotten punk who crashed the prom and -- surprise -- had a really good time despite all the stiffs. "So Sad to Say," "Over The Eggshells" and the Pogues-like "Riot on Broad Street" visit those days of yesteryear with a more pragmatic eye than No Doubt could hope to muster -- and a tougher, catchier sound to boot.

There's room for both records on your shelf, if you're so inclined. And you'll probably listen to "Return to Saturn" more often because it goes down easier with cabernet and your high school yearbook. But it's "Pay Attention" that tells the real story of the 1980s -- and the 1990s, and all that comes after.