The Suburbs are one of my favorite examples of a band I had to stumble into—no one around me told me they had existed or that they were the missing Minneapolis link between Prince and The Replacements. Their albums are sorely underrated and, as Mr. Smigielski’s seen, now hard to find. So I wanted to follow his example and utilize another powerhouse you’re not likely to have heard of.
Martha and the Muffins were Canada’s entry in the post-punk Olympics, and had filled out by 1983’s Danseparc album to incorporate warmer guitars and polyrhythms alongside their original spindly synthpop sound. Though I wanted to employ a track with horns, and though there are horns elsewhere on Danseparc, “What People Do For Fun” doesn’t have any. But it makes a fine companion to “Rattle My Bones,” with its Talking Heads guitar, automaton chant, rubbery bassline, and combination of childlike rhymes (“Eeny meeny miney mo”) and adult content (“they dance until two, fuck until four”). It continues pulling this mix square into the realm of that most excellent of pop music: the serious fun.
m. joosse
Filed under: Mixtape, NEIMT, Vol 07, Martha and the Muffins
