Dark at the End of the Tunnel - Oingo Boingo (CD 1998)

I first heard of Oingo Boingo some twenty odd years ago when I heard "Who Do You Want to Be Today" on a local college station. It was like being struck by lightning.

Creative, unusual, intelligent, they did what they wanted versus probably doing what would have been more commercially viable.

Each Oingo Boingo album is unique and different, but once you've heard one, you can easily identify the Oingo Boingo "sound". There is nothing else quite like it.

Having said that, this is the Boingo album that stands out as most different from the other albums, and, imho, should have been the one that propelled them to popular success. But, be forewarned, this is an intensely personal album, and the mental imagery may not be to everyone's taste. It is, however, my personal nominee for the best album of all time, by any artist.

Lead singer/writer Danny Elfman is a master of the musical hook, interjecting his music with dark pain and humor. Death is a frequent theme in his material, but more in a childish, curious, "what if" way, rather than in a grotesque way.

He also has a way of getting into your head and under your skin, no way moreso than the intimate, extremely personal song, "Skin". Dark, psychological, and with a driving marimba backbeat, "Skin" is my favorite song by any artist, period.

Oingo Boingo has an unusual style of playing a very new-wavish (not a good description, but then they are indescribable) theme, and suddenly bursting unexpectedly into something gorgeous, harmonic, and hypnotic for a few bars, and then falling back to the original theme. It's what keeps you playing all the songs on their albums, all the way through, for those few seconds of transcendent beauty, and this album has the best hooks. Flesh and Blood is a fine example, insoucient and nearly tuneless black and white, until, in Oz fashion, it suddenly bursts into color in the chorus. Is This is another example of this unexpectedly glorious, almost angelic sound.

Right to Believe manages to becompletely outside the usual Oingo Boingo ouvre, while still having the signature sound that can only be Boingo.

If you are only familiar with Danny Elfman's music through his movie scores, prepare yourself for something completely different. It's almost like two different musical lives, although, the score to Nightmare Before Christmas bridges the two. Oingo Boingo's music has as unique a musical signature as does Elfman's instantly recognizable scores.

The thing with Oingo Boingo is you either love them passionately, or you just...don't. The day I went into the store to buy the latest Oingo Boingo album and discovered it was titled "Farewell", I stood in the store and cried like a baby. That was a black day for me. I have since been to my lawyer and had it written into my will that when I go, all my Oingo Boingo CDs go with me. He thought it was hysterical, but this intensely personal album is intensely personal. To Me.