The 1980s File Feature
Is That It?
Is That It? Katrina and the Waves After the WaveSpring of 1986, and Katrina and the Waves had a problem that many bands would happily trade for their worst d…
01 The Story
Is That It? Katrina and the Waves After the Wave
Spring of 1986, and Katrina and the Waves had a problem that many bands would happily trade for their worst day: they had made one of the most joyful records in the history of rock and roll, and now everyone wanted to know what came next. Walking on Sunshine, released in 1985, had been a phenomenon, a song so radiantly, unambiguously happy that it became the go-to soundtrack for television commercials, film montages, and any occasion requiring musical evidence that life could be wonderful. Is That It? was the follow-up, charting in 1986 as the band tried to navigate an enormous amount of accumulated expectation.
After Sunshine: A Band Under Pressure
Katrina and the Waves formed in Cambridge, England, though their core members had roots in several countries, giving the group a slightly transatlantic quality that suited the sound they were developing. Fronted by Katrina Leskanich, whose voice carried both warmth and considerable power, the band made upbeat, hook-driven rock with a brightness that owed as much to American new wave and power pop as to anything specifically British. Their debut on Capitol Records had produced Walking on Sunshine, and the commercial breakthrough it represented was extraordinary. The song charted in both the US and the UK, and its afterlife in advertising and popular culture would make it one of the most recognized recordings of the decade. Following it up was going to require considerable confidence.
The Sound and the Chart Story
The band's second Capitol album, Waves, was the source of Is That It?, and the record showed a group working to demonstrate range beyond the straight-ahead euphoria of their breakthrough. The track entered the Billboard Hot 100 on April 5, 1986 at number 87, working its way steadily upward through the spring. It peaked at number 70 on May 10, 1986, having charted for 8 weeks. That was a respectable showing for a follow-up to a genuine phenomenon, though inevitably it would be measured against the impossible standard of the song that preceded it.
The Mid-1980s Chart Landscape
The spring of 1986 was a competitive moment on the Billboard Hot 100. The decade had hit its commercial peak as far as the pop-rock mainstream was concerned: synthesizers and drum machines occupied most of the top-tier real estate, and the polished production values of the era had become a kind of default sound that required extra effort to stand apart from. Katrina and the Waves were working against that tendency by maintaining a guitar-forward, relatively organic sound that gave their records an energy the more overtly synthetic productions of the era could not quite match. Is That It? maintained those values while the band explored slightly different emotional territory.
The Difficulty of the Second Act
Rock history is littered with acts for whom the enormous success of a debut or breakthrough recording became a creative and commercial burden. The expectations that surrounded everything Katrina and the Waves released after Walking on Sunshine were fundamentally unreasonable, shaped by a record that had transcended its moment and achieved something close to permanent cultural embedding. Working through that dynamic with continued chart presence was itself an achievement. The band remained active and continued recording through the decade, demonstrating a professionalism that outlasted the immediate pressure of the follow-up problem.
A Song Worth Hearing on Its Own Terms
The fairest approach to Is That It? is to hear it without the context of what came before, which is admittedly difficult but rewarding. On its own terms it is a well-crafted rock track from a band with real facility for the form, delivered with the kind of conviction that good pop rock requires. Press play and give it the clean hearing it deserves.
“Is That It?” — Katrina and the Waves' singular moment on the 1980s charts.
02 Song Meaning
Is That It? Questions, Expectations, and the Second Album
The title of this record carries more weight than it might initially appear to. Is That It? could be read as a simple interrogative, a question about the nature of the experience being described in the lyric, but in the context of a band following up one of the most beloved recordings of the decade, there is an unavoidable second layer of meaning available for the reader willing to bring it.
The Question as Posture
Titles that end in question marks have a particular energy in pop music. They suggest incompleteness, searching, the refusal to settle for easy answers. For a band that had made its name on the most unambiguous celebration of pure happiness in recent pop memory, a title in the interrogative mode represented a genuine shift in emotional register. The question is not necessarily anxious or despairing; it might be curious, reflective, or even provocative. But it is categorically different from the declaration of Walking on Sunshine, and that difference is itself meaningful.
The Sound of Searching
Whatever the lyric's specific content, the musical setting of a mid-1980s Katrina and the Waves track would have carried its own meaning for listeners familiar with the band's aesthetic. The guitar-forward, rhythm-driven sound they favored communicated a kind of earnest rock authenticity that contrasted with the more synthetic textures dominating the charts at the time. That contrast was a statement about values: about preferring physical, band-generated energy to studio construction, about prioritizing groove and momentum over sonic novelty.
Expectations as Context
Part of what any piece of music means is defined by what the listener brings to it, and by 1986, listeners were bringing a very specific set of expectations to Katrina and the Waves. The expectation of joy, of the uncomplicated happiness that Walking on Sunshine had delivered with such completeness, shaped how anything the band subsequently released was heard. Is That It? was being received through that lens regardless of its actual content. The question the title poses is therefore also a question to the listener: are your expectations appropriate here?
The Mid-1980s Mood
The mid-1980s pop landscape was a peculiar mixture of surface optimism and underlying anxiety. The decade's defining visual and sonic aesthetic communicated confidence, prosperity, and forward momentum; beneath those surfaces, real tensions around economic inequality, international conflict, and the AIDS crisis were generating a very different emotional reality for many people. A song that asks "is that it?" fits into the latter current more than the former, registering a kind of wary scrutiny that the decade's dominant cultural mood was working to suppress.
The Value of the Question
Pop music is better at asking questions than it sometimes gets credit for. The form's reputation for easy affirmation obscures how often the best pop records express doubt, uncertainty, or genuine emotional complexity within frameworks that sound simple. Is That It? poses a question to its listeners that is worth sitting with: an invitation to examine whether what has been offered, in love, in life, in expectation, is really sufficient. The answer, of course, depends entirely on who is listening.
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