whomanfoursays by Dalbello

whomanfoursays, from 1984, is the record where Lisa Dal Bello cut her name down to Dalbello and walked away from the soul and R&B sheen of her teenage albums. It's her fourth album and her first concept record, she wrote every song on it alone, and Mick Ronson co-produced it with her. Between the two of them they played every instrument, which goes a long way toward explaining the homemade menace: this is avant-garde alternative rock with a pop singer's lungs, all jagged edges and dramatic swoops, and "Gonna Get Close to You" creeps along with a slow, predatory crawl.

Even the packaging plays games. The title puns on "human forces", Mary Margaret O'Hara hand-lettered the name in fake Cyrillic for the vinyl sleeve, Dalbello's face is painted in the manner of New Guinea's indigenous peoples, and the credits brag about a made-up "Hughmann technique". Capitol put it out.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.