Mama's Boys

This eponymous release from Irish hard rockers Mama's Boys was intended to cherry-pick the best tracks from the band's first years of independent activity (two albums and a handful of singles) as a means for new label, Jive Records, to introduce them to America. Problem was, Jive's notion of "best" actually translated as "most accessible," and this meant that many nuggets from Mama's Boys' wonderfully unassuming first album were passed over for unquestionably sleeker but creatively more pedestrian offerings from their second. At least their biggest-charting Irish single, "Needle in the Groove," made the cut, along with "In the Heat of Night," "Runaway Dreams," and second LP standout "Gentleman Rogues." But the greatest irony was saved for a new recording -- a cover of Slade's "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" -- that was released as a single, saw decent MTV airplay, and reached number 54 on the American charts, but was ultimately trumped by Quiet Riot's number one version of the same song. In the end, this sequence of events presaged Mama's Boys' entire U.S. experience, as their career quickly fizzled without troubling the Billboard or radio Top 40 charts in any serious fashion. ~ Eduardo Rivadavia