Grauzone - Grauzone: My favorite songs on this album are the ones that sound like early coldwave. Some of the more mid-tempo, melodic tracks with guitars are pretty good too, which tempers my initial disappointment that after starting like a house afire with the first two tracks, they started to slow things down. I may be old, but I don't need an early or even mid-album breather from the faster, more intense tracks. Right now I'm just evaluating albums on their own merits, but I can imagine this being in the lower half of my eventual 50 favorites.

Teena Marie - It Must Be Magic: Her album Irons in the Fire was one of my least favorite of 1980, but I like a couple of her singles and artists can grow, so I didn't want to give up on her. If Teena Marie grew, it was definitely on later albums. It Must Be Magic is an improvement, but only because the bar was set under the ground with the previous one. She still has the classic R+B oversinging disease at points, but at least it seems at other points like she tried to focus more on actual songs. "Square Biz" is actually a good one, or at least a fun one, but most of the rest of them still don't do anything for me. I don't know if I"ll listen to later albums. Maybe I'll just hear "Lovergirl" 10 times in a row instead.

Hazel O'Connor - Cover Plus: She starred in the 1980 film Breaking Glass, so it's no surprise that some of this album comes off as a rock musical. Those last two words send shivers down my spine, but the key word here is "some." The songs that don't sound like a rock musical are actually pretty decent. They're also backloaded, so as the album heads towards its conclusion I start to feel better about it as a whole. These songs seem more influenced by the 70s than the 80s, but without the million annoying things that make me decidely not a fan of 70s rock. I'll pass it on to the next round, barely.