JOY ELECTRIC
Robot Rock
(BEC Recordings)

Perrey & Kingsley crossed with 1910 Fruitgum Co. at their most diabetes-inducing? Or how about caramel-covered Muppet Kraftwerk with My Bloody Valentine vocals? Or, take the idea of goofy, ferociously infectious, hook-laced bubblegum pop songs swimming in a musical sea of danceable 80s-videogame-like bleeps below airy, sorta falsetto vocals. If you’re a sucker for a catchy rock song but feel most of current pop/rock music lacks enough quirky personality to hold your interest, then Joy Electric may be for you. It’s a square peg with some commercially accessible elements that prevent it from easily being grouped with most of the releases reviewed here, but its goofball robotic Willy Wonka worldview and weird analog synth bleeps are sure to send the record-buying majority running for Madonna.

Joy Electric is mostly this one guy Ronnie Martin, who over the past few years has left behind a string of these electronic Candy-Land recordings. His syrupy Moog-laced ditties about girlfriends, God, and gumdrops have gone ignored by everyone but a small cult audience. Robot Rock features a much fuller, more audience-friendly and commercially viable sound than earlier releases while maintaining Joy Electric’s trademark la-la-bloop-blorp sound. Among an album’s worth of swell tracks like "Robot Beat" and "Joy Electric Land," "Strawberry Heart" in particular bubbles up as an exceptional sleeper over repeated listens. From the punchy stomp of the opener "Sugar Rush" to the spacey closer "(We’re) Taking Over," Robot Rock is as consistently addicting and unstoppable as a package of Oreos.

In Ronnie’s catchy ode to his vintage synthesizer, "Monosynth," he makes this bombastic claim: "With the stroke of magic hands, I’ll make your dreams come true with my Monosynth." It worked on me.

(Originally published in Cool & Strange Music Magazine, Issue #8, Spring 1998)