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Liner Note Author: Mark Brennan . The Dead End Kids got their first big break when they opened for the Bay City Rollers during a British tour in 1976, and the two bands were likely a good match -- on their first and only album, 1977's Breakout, the Dead End Kids play calculated, commercial pop music aimed at the younger side of the teen market, following the same approach that had made the Rollers a massive success. While the Dead End Kids lack the same "guilty pleasure" appeal as the Rollers all these year later, Breakout at least shows that the group were good at what they were doing. Singer Robbie Gray had solid pipes, and while producer Barry Blue and arrangers John Cameron and Graham Preskett turn these songs Teflon-slick, the band delivers the material with enthusiasm and as much conviction as one can muster for songs like "I'm Your Music Man," "All My Love Always," and "Last Night in Chinatown" (the latter complete with rinky-tink "Chinese" keyboard lines). While "Tough Kids" is a laughable attempt to make the boys sound like they came from the wrong side of the tracks, the covers of "C'mon Let's Go" and "Have I the Right" are solid, and when the band work up a decent head of steam they suggest that if they'd been encouraged to rock harder they could have become a teeny-bopper version of Slade. The Dead End Kids were over and done with by the end of the '70s, and while Breakout is far from a lost classic, its suggests the group had a potential for better things they never quite reached. [The Glam/7T 2007 CD reissue of the 1978 LP features three non-LP single sides, making it a practically definitive overview of their recording career.] ~ Mark Deming
