Don't stay late, come home safe

November 19, 2017 2:31 PM

Planet P Project is a science-fiction-inspired one-man band and an album by Tony Carey. Their debut album [46m] featured known single, Why Me. Planet P Project previously.
posted by hippybear (11 comments total)

I always assumed Planet P Project was a Sigue Sigue Sputnik type band, and listening to the hit I'm kind of inclined to hold on to that, but I'll listen to the album and see where the SciFi and experimentalism come in. Interesting, thanks!
posted by rhizome at 2:56 PM on November 19, 2017

Yes, I'm old. I get it.
posted by humboldt32 at 4:06 PM on November 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

"We give 'em Gomer Pyle on the video ... / They go crazy ..."
posted by octobersurprise at 5:17 PM on November 19, 2017

I love this song, despite how I used to confuse it with Peter Schilling's Major Tom. I was an MTV kid, sue me.

I had forgotten that Carey also did 'A Fine Fine Day', which I like a lot -- yet used to confuse somehow with Charlie Sexton's Beat's So Lonely.

I love side projects dedicated to weird, science fiction, fantasy whatnot. I love it more when it's their MAIN project.
posted by taterpie at 5:39 PM on November 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

On the surface, "A Fine Fine Day" reminds me so much of Elliot Murphy with synths replacing harmonica.
posted by rhizome at 5:54 PM on November 19, 2017

When I was in high school, I owned this album. Tony Carey was so far from being a blip on local rock radio that I thought this was his main project and that his solo song was just the side project. Then he vanished from American radio.

The album is an interesting curiosity but all these years later, I wonder what I saw in it at the time.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:41 PM on November 19, 2017

Man, nobody's videos freaked me out when I was a kid like "Why Me?" and "Behind the Barrier." I didn't see that kind of nightmare fuel on MTV again until the days of "One" and "Black Hole Sun." That's pretty much my only enduring memory of Planet P. Well, that and "I Won't Be Home Tonight", his pre-Planet P solo venture, which was also played to death on MTV in its day.
posted by mykescipark at 7:02 PM on November 19, 2017

Wow, I hadn't thought about this album in ages. It's always been kind of a spiritual successor to ELO's Time in my science-fiction concept-album head-canon.
posted by MrVisible at 9:51 PM on November 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

I owned the cassette of the follow up album, Pink World. The lead single, Do You See What I See, I programmed into a Logo project I was required to do in a Teaching Geometry class at FSU.

That is probably the most 80s sentence I have ever typed.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:49 AM on November 20, 2017

As soon as I saw the name "Tony Carey," something quiet rang in the back of my head. I knew I had heard of him before, but where? Turns out Tony was the keyboard player in the Dio-era Rainbow, recording both Rainbow Rising and part of Long Live Rock 'n' Roll.
posted by stannate at 8:06 AM on November 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

I loved "Why Me: and was also spooked by the video. Thanks for the memory!
posted by Legomancer at 10:09 AM on November 20, 2017