When most folks think of Wendy O. Williams and the Plasmatics these days, they tend to think of two things, both of which happened to be covered in whipped cream and electrical tape.
Sadly, lost in the spectacle of the band's highly visual live performances is the fact that the Plasmatics were one of the tightest units in all of rock. Even on their Ed Stasium-produced debut album, New Hope For The Wretched, the themes of world destruction and sexual longing may have been delivered with a crude simplicity, but the band's high-octane punk ferocity was executed with military precision.
Unfortunately, it wasn't the band's musical prowess that was making national headlines.
Rather than make the same rapid-fire punk album again and again in hopes that the masses would eventually catch up, the Plasmatics chose their third album (and first for major label Capitol Records) as their platform for blurring the line between punk and metal once and for all.
By doing so, they reasoned, perhaps they could reach an audience that bridged both genres. To accomplish this meant working with a metal producer so they recruited Dieter Dierks, who had just produced the Scorpions' U.S. breakthrough Blackout, featuring the hit single "No One Like You".
The resulting album, Coup d'Etat, was a metallic K.O. of fist-pounding bravado featuring such should-be metal anthems as "Put Your Love In Me" and "Rock & Roll", not to mention a fiery version of Motorhead's "No Class". Despite glowing reviews from the metal press, Capitol got cold feet and killed all promotion, hanging both the band and the album out to dry in the midst of a U.S. tour with Kiss.
By this time, Gene Simmons had expressed his interest in producing the next Plasmatics record, but the band's relationship with Capitol was on its last legs. This did little to deter Simmons' interest, as he'd been trying to build a name for himself as a producer since his days working with a then-unsigned Van Halen.
While his intentions then had been to lure a young Eddie Van Halen into the Kiss fold as a replacement for Ace Frehley, one had to wonder what his motives were in producing Williams' record.
Even so, Simmons' dedication to the project far outstretched the available budget, as the album was recorded before any record deal had been secured. This was proven by his decision to not only bring in current Kiss members Paul Stanley and Eric Carr, but also Ace Frehley and Vinnie Vincent as well as co-writing more than half of the album's songs.
One of those songs, the Simmons-Stanley penned "It's My Life", would become the album's sole single.
What's most notable about the album is William's vocals, which bear a striking resemblance to late '80s "I Hate Myself For Loving You"-era Joan Jett while the music is straight-up Lick it Up-era Kiss.
It was obvious that the intent here was to take Wendy O. Williams mainstream and on the power ballad (!) "Opus In Cm7", Williams' voice sizzles with a subtlety and warmth that no Plasmatics album even came close to hinting at, leaving this writer wondering how the song escaped being released as a single.
35 years after its initial release, W.O.W. stands as not only the most mature album of Williams' storied career, but the one project that should have brought her at least some inkling of commercial success. At the very least, it remains arguably the best Kiss album of the '80s, if not also the best faux-Joan Jett record of the same period.