Stacey Q Hard Machine Review

Second Album from 80’s One Hit Wonder Gets Digital Release on Amazon

Mar 9, 2009

Stacey Q may be go down in music history as an 80's one hit wonder but its her 1988 follow up album Hard Machine for which she should truly be remembered.

Former actress bounced onto the dance floor in 1986 with her sugary “Two of Hearts”, which became a number 2 smash for the California native. That synth-pop hit came at a time when Madonna was moving towards more serious material and Cyndi Lauper stopped having fun.

Stacey Q filled the dance floor queen shoes well, if only so briefly. Her star rose fast garnering her a reoccurring guest spot on the hit TV comedy The Facts of Life as none other than a struggling pop tart named Cinnamon. Two years later, Stacey Q dropped the bimbo-like persona in favour of a more punk edge and released a grittier follow-up, the aptly titled Hard Machine.

Don’t Make a Fool of Yourself

Lead single “Don’t Make a Fool of Yourself” appeared in early 1988 before the album’s release. With a sexy groove heavy on beat machines and slick synths, the track made a small dent on the lower end of the charts but subsequent singles failed to reproduce the success of “Two of Hearts”

As a whole, Hard Machine is a much more powerful album than her debut record Better Than Heaven. Hints of bubble gum sprinkle Hard Machine on tracks such as “Good Girl”, “Favorite Things” as well as the “Two of Hearts”-sounding “I Love You”.

But it was the less polished sound, moodier themes and mixture of musical styles, from the light-hearted, yet dark “Kiss It All Goodbye” to the brooding and shadowy “The River”, that caught the ear of music critics. Editors of Spin magazine even named Hard Machine one of the best alternative albums ever in their publication Spin Alternative Record Guide (Vintage, 1995).

Darker beats fuel “Temptation” and the title track, on which she half raps, showing different sides to this cinnamon girl, with varying effectiveness.

The album closes with a duo of some of the best forgotten pop of the 80’s – “After Hours”, a breezy tale of long distance love, and album closer “Another Chance”, an uncharacteristic ballad which the singer wrote herself.

Kiss It All Goodbye

Hard Machine, for all its strengths, failed to make the same impact with listeners and the record buying public as its predecessor. Shortly after its release Stacey Q left her label and quickly faded into pop obscurity, surfacing from time to time with a couple of independently released albums and finally a greatest hits collection that mysteriously omitted any of the Hard Machine recordings in favor of “Two of Hearts”, “We Connect” (her only other top 40 hit) as well as some half-baked attempts at remaking those two singles.

Hard Machine went out of print and wasn’t available as a paid download until now on Amazon.com’s MP3 store. Though highly overlooked, this classic 80’s album crossed several musical styles and remains one of the most interesting dance records of its time.

Twenty years after its original release, Hard Machine still sounds great and now that it is available as a digital download, deserves another chance.

The copyright of the article Stacey Q Hard Machine Review in Dance/Techno Music is owned by James W. Coates. Permission to republish Stacey Q Hard Machine Review in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.