Flop - Whenever You're Ready (1993)

Flop formed in 1989 when vocalist and guitarist Rusty Willoughby and drummer Nate Johnson left the group Pure Joy and joined up with guitarist Bill Campbell from Chemistry Set and bassist Paul Schurr from the Seers of Bavaria. After releasing a terrifically melodic, driving punk-pop album, Flop and the Revenge of the Mopsqueezer, on Frontier Records, the group was signed to Epic Records and produced an equally catchy major label debut in Whenever You're Ready. Apparently, Epic was not ready for Flop, and dropped the band shortly after their tour supporting the record. Now back with Frontier, Flop's sound has an extra edge to it, making the band's brand of dry-witted, intelligent pop that much more intruiging. by Heather Phares

For the follow-up to the previous year's debut Flop and the Fall of the Mopsqueezer!, Seattle's Flop enlists sensational '70s punk-era producer Martin Rushent -- who did 99 percent of Buzzcocks' original works, as well as early Stranglers, 999, Generation X, and so on -- for what seems like a perfect marriage. But, in fact, Kurt Bloch's work on the first album sounds heavier. Without emasculating them, it seems Rushent has polished up the rougher surfaces and given the vocals more prominence in the mix (a common major-label malady, though it's not so bad here), making them seem bigger (more Pistols-ish in places) and more friendly if less mean. So it takes a few plays to get used to the subtle change, but it's worth it. Guitarist/leader and onetime Fastbacks drummer Rusty Willoughby's singing on the more amiable pop tunes makes Flop sound like a squeaky-clean cross between the Records, Cheap Trick, and the Bay City Rollers, crossing this otherwise punk-oriented, two-guitar barrage into more maudlin power pop territory (and on the more sassy numbers such as "En Route to the Unified Field Theory" and "A Fixed Point," they flirt with glam-ish camp); even then it's thick and zesty, and the band can't help but blasting out the next track. Each song takes pains to depart from its predecessor, altering the tempos, rhythms, swings, and feels (hooray for the lost art of variety!). While the late-'70s Buzzcocks remain the ultimate pairing of punk's wall-of-guitar onslaught and unbelievably catchy hooks, this hookup of their old producer and these Pac Northwest mavericks "produces" favorable results. by Jack Rabid



1. A. Wylie
2. Regrets
3. Julie Francavilla
4. Pluto
5. En Route to the Unified Field Theory
6. A Fixed Point
7. The Great Valediction
8. Mendel's White Trash Laboratory
9. Z² + C
10. Sorry Henry Maartens
11. Night of the Hunter
12. Port Angeles
13. Eat
14. Woolworth
15. Pts. 1 & 2
16. Need Retrograde Orbit

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