It's easy to pigeonhole
Big Daddy as a one-joke band, and many people did dismiss this bunch as a mere novelty act. This is half-right, because they are definitely a novelty act -- but they're a truly great novelty act. Like all great jokes, there are layers to this band, and on their first album they set a standard that they never quite reached again. The idea of playing 1980s songs in a 1950s style was a nice little giggle, but what is surprising is how well some work stands the treatment and how appalling others sound. Those cuts that had good lyrical and musical values are still good -- "Ebony and Ivory" done as
Little Richard would have done it is still a great musical statement, just a joyous one. "Bette Davis Eyes" fares just as well, and the "Star Wars Theme" is entirely credible as a '50s rock instrumental. On the other hand, the songs that were pretentious or pompous in the first place fare pretty horribly, as exemplified by "I Write the Songs" and "Hotel California." Somewhere in the middle is
Big Daddy's version of "Super Freak" as done by
Pat Boone in his pre-metal days -- it's a hilarious juxtaposition of music and message. The first
Big Daddy album is thought-provoking in several ways, both as individual pieces and as a whole. Listen to it from beginning to end and try to imagine how this album would have been received if it was actually released in 1959. [Note: Though also known as
What Really Happened to the Band of '59, the original release of this album only had the name of the band on the cover.]