Rockets - Don't Stop (2003)

1 	Don't Stop 	3:49
2 	Rockets Land 	3:48
3 	One Day 	4:53
4 	On The Road Again 	6:00
5 	Communication 	4:54
6 	Electric Delight 	4:09
7 	Endless Blue 	4:32
8 	Galactica 	5:10
9 	Astral World 	5:44
10 	Moon Walk 	3:50

Luca Bestetti L.B.M. - vocals
Matt Rossato - guitar
Fabrice Quagliotti - keyboards
Little B. - drums

Don't Stop is the tenth studio album by the French band Rockets. The album, however, includes 4 old hits remixes, and the title track is inspired by a 1982 song which was supposed to be included on the album Atomic, but eventually discarded.

Rockets started in Paris way back in 1974 under the name Rocket Men. Dressed up in matching silver suits with shaved heads and silvery gray facepaint, they no doubt caused quite a scene in the French rock clubs of the day. Their otherworldly appearance and heavy use of synthesizers and vocoders suggested a strong Kraftwerk influence, but there was more to them than that: The very first track on their 1976 self-titled debut album, for example, was “Apache,” a funked-up version of a faux-Spaghetti Western rock instrumental recorded by a 1960 British skiffle band called The Shadows. They later covered Canned Heat, too. So their influences ranged pretty far beyond Ziggy-era Bowie and Krautrock—although that was clearly all part of the mix, too.

By 1979, Rockets had begun to enjoy some commercial success, at least in Europe, where their third album Plasteroid sold out in some countries almost as soon as it was released. By this time, they had developed more of a pop/New Wave sound and outfits that appeared to borrow rather flagrantly from Ace Frehley’s Spaceman look. But they had also perfected a highly entertaining live show that featured lots of robot dance moves and a scary, bazooka-like device with which lead singer Christian Le Bartz could shower the audience with sparks. [Update: There was a YouTube video of them doing this on an Italian TV show, but it’s sadly since been taken down, so you’ll have to take our word for it when we say it looked awesome and genuinely dangerous.]

Rockets peaked, both commercially and creatively, with 1980’s Galaxy, a brilliantly campy piece of space-rock/synth-pop with blacklight-ready cover art and high-concept songs about space travel and cyborgs and other bits of sci-fi geekery. It sold over a million copies worldwide, but the band began to unravel soon thereafter. By 1983, both lead singer Le Bartz and drummer Alain Groetzinger had quit the group, followed shortly by their longtime producer, Claude Lemoine, and their bassist, “Little” Gerard L’Her. With a new British lead singer, Sal Solo, the remnants of Rockets squeezed out two more albums, 1986’s One Way and 1992’s Another Future—the latter of which gamely tried to update the band’s sound with some Brit-rave beats, but without much success. By 1993, the band was effectively defunct. But nothing helps revive musical careers like a healthy dose of nostalgia—so you will not be surprised to learn that as of 2000, Rockets have resumed their existence, albeit in heavily watered-down form. The closest thing they still have to an original member is keyboardist Fabrice Quagliotti, an Italian who joined the group in 1977. ---weirdestbandintheworld.com

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