Call of the West
1982 studio album by Wall of Voodoo
Call of the West is the second studio album by American rock band Wall of Voodoo, released in September 1982. The album contains "Mexican Radio", the group's most well-known song, which was released as a single and whose video received moderate airplay on MTV.
It was the final Wall of Voodoo album to feature drummer Joe Nanini and frontman Stan Ridgway, who both departed the group along with subsequently-added keyboardist Bill Noland the following year.
Critical reception
In a 1982 Trouser Press review, Jon Young said, "[t]hey're dealing in pure hokum, for sure, but Wall of Voodoo has become very good at it. Atmosphere is all in these muttered tales of desperation and weirdness, suggesting Devo on a bad trip of no return. But Call of the West doesn't repel; it's spooky halloweenish fun."
Track listing
All music composed by Wall of Voodoo. All lyrics composed by Stan Ridgway.
Side one
"Tomorrow" – 3:03
"Lost Weekend" – 4:59
"Factory" – 5:33
"Look at Their Way" – 3:18
"Hands of Love" – 3:54
Side two
"Mexican Radio" – 4:11
"Spy World" – 2:41
"They Don't Want Me" – 4:31
"On Interstate 15" – 2:44
"Call of the West" – 5:59
The original cassette release of the album features a bonus track called "Exercise" at the end of side one, following "Hands of Love".
In 2009, Australian label Raven Records reissued Call of the West and the first Wall of Voodoo album, Dark Continent, together on one CD, featuring a full color booklet with liner notes by Ian McFarlane. Both albums were digitally remastered.
“Call of the West” enters the record as 1982 studio album by Wall of Voodoo. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Call, West and studio can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Call of the West” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Call, West and studio provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5021653. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982 and 2009.
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This entry incorporates text from “Call of the West” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.