In Fall 1979, rocker R. Stevie Moore squeezed into a midtown Manhattan building at 56 West 45th Street, entered a tiny 8th floor jingle studio run by Englishman Tom Clack, and proceeded to bond bigtime with ambitious engineer Jon Child (who Uncle Harry Palmer had earlier sought out to assist in assembling the original PHONOGRAPHY album) to create one of his greatest collections of music. Still awestruck by his recent move north, R. Stevie first met Jon & Tom when the studio was utilized for compiling the DELICATE TENSION LP. With a cache of great new songs & experiments, he now was set, aimed to break down all barriers and collect audio styles galore in a "professional" 8 track environment, a major jump from mere tapedeck home demos. The project extended well into the next year (decade). Those many sessions are gathered on this 60 minute masterpiece, simply titled "CLACK!" from which many of Moore's greatest all-time hits emerged.
Almost all of these original tracks eventually appeared on vinyl, scattered across RSM's many '80s LPs.
AMG REVIEW: The '80s were R. Stevie Moore's period of greatest exposure, and he started the decade off in style with an album of songs that would eventually become some of his most famous tunes. Clack! is notable also for being Moore's very first professional studio sessions, recorded in an 8-track jingle studio (run by a gentleman named Tom Clack, hence the onomatopoeic album title) in midtown Manhattan in late 1979. The sonic difference between this album and Moore's homemade '70s tapes is astonishing; the new version of "Part of the Problem," originally recorded in 1978, is not only definitive, it's arguably Moore's all-time finest three and three-quarters minutes. More importantly, Clack! includes several other songs that would quickly become fan favorites, including a silly but surprisingly effective power pop rendition of the Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" and the dark-edged new wave synth-pop of "Bloody Knuckles," both of which garnered a fair amount of college radio airplay in the first half of the '80s. The jangly guitar rock of "Teen Routines" and "You Always Want What You Don't Have" accurately predicts the Hoboken sound that would sweep over Moore's adopted northern New Jersey home in the ensuing decade, and the stomping "Conflict of Interest" and the thrilling falsettos of "U.R. True" are both vintage new wave and prime R. Stevie Moore.
– Stewart Mason, All Music Guide
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