It doesn’t feel like an exaggeration to say that the Greg Kihn Band’s #2 hit single “Jeopardy” (1983) both made and wrecked the band.
From his roots as a Buddy Holly-idolizing solo singer-songwriter, Kihn had been on a gradual but steady upward career arc. First the young folk-rocker attracted Bruce Springsteen’s attention with an earnest cover of “For You”; then he formalized his sharp live ensemble as the power-pop leaning Greg Kihn Band, and then he honed his songwriting enough to earn the GKB’s first chart hit with 1981’s hooky, urgent “The Breakup Song.” Even as the singles from 1982’s follow-up album Kihntinued were failing to catch fire at radio, Kihn’s bassist and frequent songwriting partner Steve Wright was noodling around on his new Casio keyboard, stumbling across the hook at the heart of “Jeopardy.”
“Jeopardy” anchored 1983’s Kihnspiracy, an album that found Kihn embracing a keyboard-heavy, oh-so-’80s sound, even as the sense of fun that had infused his earlier work seemed to leak away. The original Greg Kihn Band’s last album—1984’s Kihntagious—saw those trends accelerate, a frequently dour set dominated by dated synths and dark energy.
At the end of the Kihntagious tour, Kihn parted ways with both from-the-beginning mainstay Larry Lynch (drums/vocals) and longtime GKB member Gary Phillips (keyboards /guitar). Interestingly, this all went down around at the same time a major label finally signed Kihn; after years on Bay Area upstarts Beserkley Records, his next album would be issued by EMI America.
After nine years and nine albums trapped in the relentless write-record-release-tour machine, Kihn leaned heavily on Wright to generate material for Citizen Kihn. The pair co-wrote every song here and Wright played all of the bass, most of the keyboards, and even some guitar, along with singing harmony vocals. The resulting album is a true collaboration between the two—which it seems it had to be, given that Kihn appears to have been exhausted both physically and creatively at the time.
As with Kihntagious, Citizen Kihn heavily features machine-smooth ’80s keyboards taking up the musical space once occupied by vibrant guitars. Former GKB lead guitarist Greg Douglass is credited here, and his crinkly, rather sterile solos pop up from time to time, but make no mistake: this is a keyboard album, 11 rolls of the dice aimed at producing another “Jeopardy.”
It didn’t.
Lead single “Lucky” puts all of this album’s pros and cons on blast. There’s a decent synth hook and bass groove, as well as strong harmonies—something you could always count on from Kihn and Wright. But Tyler Eng’s drums sound faceless and mechanical and the hook repeats ad nauseam, interrupted only by a jazzy but rather stiff guitar solo from Wright and, at the fade, a nice sax solo from Steve Douglas. “Lucky” limped to #30 on the strength of past efforts and marked Kihn’s final appearance on the charts.
Much of the rest of the album plays like lounge-y filler. Besides “Lucky,” side one features “I’m In Love Again” (upbeat but synth-heavy, with Douglass featured briefly at the fade), “Go Back” (dark and oh-so-synth-y), and “Whenever” (a love song that’s languid rather than passionate). “Privacy” finishes up the side with another dark and dreary number with electronic drums and hints of Kihn’s unfortunate reggae obsession.
The chief impression here is of an artist whose heart isn’t in these songs. The arrangements emphasize electronic gimmickry and lack even a hint of the characteristic that set the original Greg Kihn Band apart: exuberance There’s no joy in these grooves, only obligation. Add to that the filters applied to Kihn’s lead vocals and you start to wonder how much voice he had left after a decade of touring life and all that goes with it.
Side two opens with the best thing here, the old-school rocker “Free Country,” which turns up the guitars, tones down the synths and shows real life and energy. It’s barely there, though—two verses and a chorus that repeats just enough times to fill up two minutes and 30 seconds—and the rest of side two feels like filler.
Reflecting Kihn’s fascination with horror stories, “They Rock By Night” sounds like the theme song to a movie about musical zombies; it’s upbeat and spirited but also gimmicky and repetitive. Next, Kihn and Wright answer a question no one asked: how do gated drums sound on a reggae tune played at disco tempo? The answer—“Boys Won’t”—is a sonic train wreck; the only good decision made was to include another Steve Douglas sax solo.
“Imitation Love” aims for spooky but plods instead. On both it and “Temper Temper,” Kihn and Wright trade lead vocals on the choruses, the latter featuring real steel drums that they somehow manage to make sound fake. Album closer “Good Life” opens with two competing dime-store synth tones and doesn’t improve from there; a touch of sax on the chorus isn’t enough to rescue it.
It’s strange to see that the production team here—producer Matthew King Kaufman, engineer Richie “Dr. Schnoz” Corsello, mastering engineer George Horn—is the same Kihn had been using for years. In terms of sound design, the mechanized, cold-and-sterile Citizen Kihn could hardly be more different from, say, the warm, live-from-the-studio-floor feel of Next Of Kihn. Damn you, 1980s.
The Dallas Morning News called Citizen Kihn “a lackluster, unfocused pastiche of pop tunes,” and it’s hard to argue otherwise. When the guy at the mic sounds like he’s going through the motions, the results rarely impress. Greg Kihn would last one more album on EMI America before the ax fell.
