🎙Audio Autopsy, 1980: Linda Ronstadt, "Mad Love," and Her New Wave Hired Gun, The Cretones' Mark Goldenberg
From fronting early Eagles to topping pop charts with bold ballads & rockers, Linda signals this hard left toward New Wave with Mad Love, but hires a known punker for credibility. How'd that go?🔬
of : I recently talked about this album on an episode of the new video-chat series, “Vital Records,” with of (see link in caption above). It’s my favorite of all Linda Ronstadt records, as the New Wave movement was hitting rock and Top 40 radio.Many viewed this 1980 album as Ronstadt’s own foray into the genre, as it was a mostly harder-edged album than her previous releases. Part of the credit for that goes to Mark Goldenberg, who played electric guitar on eight of the tracks, and also wrote and sang backup on three of them.
Jason Elias of Allmusic.com sets the stage for us:
“Released in 1980, Mad Love featured Linda Ronstadt taking on new wave with mixed results. At this point, her albums with producer Peter Asher became routine and repetitive. This album’s predecessor, 1978’s Living in the U.S.A., [quickly] hit the cut-out bins, so a change was in order.
“While the originals and style of guitarist Mark Goldenberg (above, recently) did predominate, Mad Love is mostly known for its three Elvis Costello covers. The strange thing about Mad Love is that it did include a lot of players from Ronstadt’s previous albums: Danny Kortchmar, Russ Kunkel, Andrew Gold, and Nicolette Larson’s great backing vocals all appear here. For the most part, Mad Love stood the test of time and is certainly different from the Ronstadt albums that preceded and followed it.”
Her Aim is True…Or, Is It? Just How “New Wave” Was Mad Love?
To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the album’s February, 1980 release, Billboard’s Ron Hart interviewed the principles in the March 10, 2020 Billboard.com:
“For all the speculation about 1980’s Mad Love — released 40 years ago in late February 1980 — being a new wave record,” the article begins, “it was never the intention of Linda Ronstadt or her longtime producer, Peter Asher, to compete with the likes of Blondie, The Cars, and the legion of acts on the vanguard of pop music at the top of the new decade.
“‘I don’t think that’s how we wanted it to sound like intentionally,’ Ronstadt explains from her home in San Francisco. ‘I was just trying to find 10 or so songs to do. Back then, I was doing about an album a year, so Mad Love fell into that cycle.’
Peter Asher, from his point-of-view: “‘Every Linda record is the same in that we were just looking for great songs that we really liked and Linda felt that she could really sing, and then framing them in the best way we could think of.’
“‘In Linda’s case, it’s always been the songs that lead a particular movement or style on one of her records, regardless if it’s a Nelson Riddle album with songs from the 1930s or Mad Love with songs from the late ’70s. It’s all the same for us.’
“For Mad Love, it meant that the new wave stylings of the record came through pure osmosis thanks to Ronstadt being introduced to material by songwriters on the bleeding edge of the burgeoning sound in 1979.”
“I was looking for songs to record,” Ronstadt explains. “And, Wendy Waldman (above), who sang with me, came to my house once with music from a young songwriter who turned out to be Billy Steinberg. So, she let me hear some of his demos and I picked the one I felt I could sing, which was ‘How Do I Make You.’”
Guitarist Mark Goldenberg had just gotten off the road with Al Stewart on his Year of the Cat tour, and was offered the chance to record with the opening act, who happened to be Wendy Waldman.
“It was pretty weird how she found me,” says Goldenberg, who not only plays guitar on most of Mad Love, but also saw Ronstadt choose three of his songs to sing in “Justine,” “Cost of Love” and the opening title cut.
“Wendy had asked me to join her band and record her album Strange Company with her [in 1978]. And, during the making of that album, I started hanging out with her bass player Peter Bernstein and Steve Beers, her drummer. So once we wrapped Strange Company, the three of us started The Cretones, and we got a regular gig at a sandwich shop near USC on Friday nights.
“So Peter Bernstein (his girlfriend was Linda Ronstadt’s dog walker named Marilyn), and she got a cassette of our tunes and gave it to Linda, and then she came to see us play at the Starwood in Hollywood. Then, after that I get a phone call from someone in Peter Asher’s office telling me that Linda Ronstadt would like to record some of my songs and asked if that was okay. So that’s how it happened. If there were no dogs, there’d be no story (laughs)!”
Dan Pal: The album also featured songs by Elvis Costello, Billy Steinberg, Neil Young, and a stellar remake of the hit, “Hurts So Bad” [which went Top 10].
These are the three songs written by Goldenberg [each originally recorded with his band, The Cretones]:
“Mad Love”
This is an energetic rocker that perfectly sets the tone for what Ronstadt seemingly wanted to lean into with this album. Its opening lines set the stage for the “madness” associated with her current love:
“If I can’t get away from you
What am I gonna do
‘Cause you hit me just like a dream
Where there’s no in-between;
‘Cause I just fall forever,
Fall forever in your eyes.”
Later she cries out, “What do you, what do you, want me to do?” with a certain gravity that makes her at once helpless, but at the same time a tough school girl expressing her frustrating feelings to a boy. I was a junior in high school when the album came out and on some level, though I wasn’t conscious about it, I probably felt the same kind of frustration.
The passionate yearning for someone didn’t come until later, but I think that’s what makes the song so resonant. It’s that timeless feeling of being drawn to someone without any clear logic.
Goldenberg’s guitar work and backing vocals add to the youthful playfulness of the song which never takes itself too seriously but rather embraces the intensity of those early emotions.
“Cost of Love”
Of the three songs Goldenberg wrote on this album, “Cost of Love” is my least favorite. It’s not bad, just not as interesting as the others. Ronstadt does her best “punk girl” delivery right from the start. Goldenberg’s guitar sounds great. I think the lyrics may be its weakest point:
“I don’t want to see you, ‘til you know the cost of love. Please don’t make me need you, till you know the cost of love.” What are those costs??
It’s got a simple and catchy, if slightly annoying, chorus. However, the song fits in great with the overall sound and goals of the album.
Bonus: Live performance, April 24, 1980, at the Television Center Studios, Hollywood (producer, Peter Asher, joining her as backing singer!):
“Justine”
One of the things I always admired about Ronstadt was that she wasn’t afraid to keep the gender of a song’s main characters intact. In “Justine,” she sings, “Justine, don’t forget about the little things our hearts do. Justine, you know just what this kiss will mean to you. Justine, don’t forget about the little things our hearts do.”
Whether she sings these from the perspective of a woman or man is irrelevant as she stays true to the writer’s vision. She also knows how to strongly deliver such lyrics. She keeps command of the person’s attention by emphasizing the “tine” in Justine. Yet, she sensitively expresses the final line to not push the girl away.
I also really like the production on this one, with some great backing vocals by Kenny Edwards and Andrew Gold. And, of course, Goldenberg’s guitar work is hard edged but not overpowering. It’s one of my favorite songs on the album!
Thank you, Dan, for bringing your love of Mad Love to FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE! Readers, subscribe to
’s !And, thanks to
of for his entertaining and always informative Substack, and his new “Vital Records” video series, which inspired this Mad Love collab with Dan (and supplied the screen captures from Dan’s “Vital Records” episode)!
The FRONT ROW & BACKSTAGE and Tune Tag Gift Shoppe is here!
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Great job putting all of this together Brad! Hope everyone enjoys this deep dive!
Guys, this was a fantastic deep dive. I’m not really a huge LR fan, but I’ve always liked some of her songs. So when Dan picked the album in the great new @Andres Vital Records series, I made a mental note to finally give it a proper listen. Especially since it carried the “new wave” label.
Back in the early eighties, “new wave” became a catch-all term. Almost every rock and pop act tried something “new wave”, usually meaning a touch more electronics and a slightly edgier production than before.
What always fascinates me, as you probably know by now, is how the artist themselves viewed it at the time. Was it a conscious creative choice? Or was it more of a label imposed by critics or the record company as a marketing angle?
That’s why your collaboration was so illuminating. I love reading these kinds of stories that shed light on the why, they bring you closer to the artist, the album, and the songs. Mission accomplished!