![]() Unfortunately, for all intents and purposes Freeze Frame marks the end of the road for the J. (Technically the disc has both an A and a B side, but come on–it’s a double A-side.) The two songs remain the band’s only tracks to break the top ten, so its no wonder that the band (or the label, or both) decided to make a little hay while the sun was shining and release a double A-side picture disc shaped like the potato head character featured on the album’s cover. They followed it up in January ’82 with “Freeze Frame,” which cracked the top five and peaked at number four. The video propelled the song to number one, the band’s only song to top the charts. “A narrative to follow and half-naked women to parade around” became one of MTV’s most reliable templates, but J. “Centerfold” couldn’t have been a better match for the video format: a story song whose narrator recognizes an old crush as this month’s foldout in his girlie magazine of choice. Geils Band had a head start on the format, releasing a promotional clip for “Love Stinks” the previous year that made the rounds of late night shows, etc.Ībout a month after MTV’s debut–on September 13, to be exact– Freeze Frame’s first single dropped. The bands quickest to grasp the power of the music video in those early days were almost guaranteed heavy rotation on the fledgling network. ![]() MTV arrived on Augand almost immediately became the most influential star-making machine of the next 15 years. It’s a great album, but it benefited tremendously from a bit of lucky timing. Geils Band released their first album in 1970, but it was the success of 1981’s Freeze Frame that transformed the group into superstars for a quick minute. If you need a record shaped like a silver potato, your options are pretty limited.
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