Solo Effort: Solo Albums by Famous Artists Part I

Dennis Wilson's Pacific Ocean Blue

I’m currently reading Dana Spiotta’s excellent novel Eat The Document, which tells the story of a woman who got involved with a fringe campus radical group in the 60’s, did something horrible (I haven’t gotten to the part where they tell us what) and had to go underground, i.e., develop an entirely new and false identity. Much of the book centers on her life in the present day and how her 17 year old son has started to suspect something’s amiss with his mom’s past.  Anyway the reason I’m sharing this is because her son is, to be as polite about it as possible, is a musical “completist” like myself who is constantly singing the praises of incredibly obscure albums, particularly ones by famous artists.  It got me thinking about the whole idea of solo albums, particularly those by members or former members of famous groups. 

Artists release solo albums for a variety of reasons.  Most obviously they do so when the famous group they are in breaks up or kicks them out (or they quit, depending on whose version of the divorce you believe).  But sometimes they release albums while still members of the group.  These can occur because the group is on hiatus but more often it occurs because the artist in question may feel confined by the group dynamic and the constraints of the expectations for the band and its sound.  The dividing line between this sort of solo album and a “vanity project” can be alarmingly thin, but even still it’s a way for that particular artist to scratch a particular creative itch that can’t be accessed within the confines of their main band. 

One interesting thing about solo albums is how they illustrate the concept of “hiding in plain sight” in the sense that most of them came nowhere near being as popular as their work with their main group.  So while nobody is more well-known in music than, say, Paul McCartney or Keith Richards, actually most people, even hardcore Beatles or Stones fans, might not have listened to their solo work to any great extent.  So in a twisted sort of way these solo albums become almost as obscure as “regular” albums released by less popular groups. 

Arguably the first “real” solo albums were the Beatles’; they were really the first real popular group in rock music, and even before their breakup the individual members started feeling constrained by the Beatles’ popularity and therefore started releasing solo albums.  The first Beatle to do so, somewhat surprisingly to most people, was not John or even Paul but George Harrison.  In December 1967 Harrison recorded the soundtrack to his director friend Joe Massot’s film Wonderwall.  Harrison was primarily the architect of the sound here, writing and arranging the music.  The music is interesting; very soundtrack-y, with no vocals and featuring a wide variety of instruments, both traditional (such as guitar and drums) and less traditional (like banjo and a wide assortment of Indian instruments).  As someone who actually likes soundtracks (even though I’m not particularly fond of movies and almost never watch them, figure that one out) I kind of like it.  Notable songs are “Red a Lady Too”, “Tabla and Pakavaj”, “Wonderall To Be Here”, and “Party Seacombe”, the latter of which comes the closest to being an actual rock song and which evokes a vague Beatle-esque jauntiness.  Wonderwall Music was also notable as Apple Record’s, the Beatles’ vanity record label’s, first official release.  This album isn’t currently commercially available but some nice fan has uploaded all the tracks to YouTube for everyone to check out.

 

Even more surprising is Harrison’s second solo effort, 1969’s Electronic Sound.  This album was the second and final album released on Zapple Records, a subsidiary of Apple dedicated to avant-garde music.  Electronic Sound, as the title truthfully states, consists almost entirely of strange synthesizer clangings, buzzings, and burblings recorded in collaboration with synth musician Bernie Krause.  Krause himself was an odd and fascinating musician.  A musical prodigy who supposedly started learning violin and classical composition by the age of four, he worked as a session musician at Motown Records before joining the folk group the Weavers (as guitarist) after the departure of Pete Seeger in 1963.  Upon the breakup of that group the next year, he studied electronic music under avant-garde pioneer Karlheinz Stockhausen and took up the newly invented Moog synthesizer.  Krause formed the duo Beaver & Krause in 1966 and released a couple of albums of electronic synthesizer music.  Krause was something of an evangelist for the Moog in particular and synths in general, supposedly setting up a booth at Woodstock demonstrating the Moog (this reminds me of the stores in the malls in the 70’s that would sell organs and would have some cheesy guy in a cheap suit playing something like “Penny Lane” on the organ to entice people into buying one).  This and other interactions with some of the biggest starts of the day led to his playing on a wide array of late 60’s albums, including ones by the Monkees, the Byrds, and the Doors. 

 

Krause in fact later pursued legal action because, according to him, part of Electronic Sound was an unauthorized recording of him simply demonstrating the synth to George Harrison.  Listening to it today (it’s not available on iTunes or Pandora or any other commercial site that I can find but it has been uploaded to YouTube), it seems as if Krause might be telling the truth.  Most of Electronic Sound consists of what seem to be random tones and knob twirlings; some of it actually reminds me of parts of the soundtrack from the seminal 70’s sci fi film Rollerball (which is one of my favorite movies of all time); very spacy, very “futuristic”.

 

Harrison would subsequently focus on albums with a much more traditional bent, and in particular in 1970 shortly after the Beatles’ breakup released his magnum opus, All Things Must Pass.  Consisting primarily of Harrison’s voluminous backlog of songs and musical ideas going back deep into the Beatles heyday that had been left off their albums by the growing hegemony of the Lennon-McCartney songwriting axis, Pass is an outstanding monument to Harrison’s songwriting ability.  Originally released as a 3-LP triple album, Pass has several outstanding songs, most of which contain lush production and highly polished studiocraft (the album was produced by Phil Spector), including the introspective piano-centered song“Isn’t It a Pity”, “I’d Have You Anytime” (co-written by Bob Dylan), the upbeat and powerpoppish“What Is Life” (which reminds me of the Bay City Roller’s “I Only Want To Be With You”), and the smash hit single “My Sweet Lord”.  Another personal fave is the beautiful cover of Dylan’s “If Not For You”, a sweet and affecting song that features Harrison’s beautiful voice.  The album notoriously ends with a series of massive jams which take up the entirety of disk 3 of the triple album and probably wouldn’t be noteworthy except that out of them grew Eric Clapton’s short-lived project Derek and the Dominoes.  Sadly, aside from Pass’ followup Living in the Material World (which it’s excellent hit “Give Me Love”) and 1979’s George Harrison (which contains the sweet, happy “Blow Away”), none of Harrison’s subsequent mid-70’s albums are available on iTunes.

 

John Lennon was the next Beatle to release a solo work, and like Harrison his first two albums were as un-Beatle-esque as can be imagined, 1968’s Unfinished Music #1:  Two Virgins.  This album (not available on iTunes, Pandora or Spotify but posted to YouTube) is half an hour of recordings of Lennon and Yoko Ono talking, walking, tweaking various instruments, whistling, shrieking, etc.  There is tape looping and often lots of effects such as reverb.  Recorded during the heyday of late 60’s avant-garde experimentalism in music, a time that saw the first recordings by La Monte Young and John Cage (a neighbor and friend of Lennon and Ono’s), this record can at least be placed in this context.  But aside from Lou Reed’s Metal Machine Music, I can’t think of a less listenable album in the past 40 years. 

 

Except, perhaps, Lennon’s second solo effort, Unfinished Music #2:  Life with the Lions.  Another highly avant-garde offering, Ono predominates here, particularly with song/side 1, “Love Comes To Everyone”, a live recording of Lennon accompanying Ono as she sings/shrieks atonally.  “No Bed For Beatle John” is Ono singing a capella a song about how Lennon was denied a place to sleep in the hospital as she had one of her miscarriages.  “Radio Play” and “Baby’s Heartbeat” are exactly what they describe.  You get the picture.  There’s little here to interest any but the most extreme Lennon completist.  The Wedding Album, also released in 1969, continues on in this almost irritatingly avant-garde vein (such as the four minute “John and Yoko”, which consists of the two shouting each other’s names over yet another heart beat).

 

John returned to a more recognizably pop/rock form of music with 1970’s John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band.  This is widely considered one of the most personal, honest, and confessional albums ever recorded.  For example, songs like “I Found Out” and “God”, which are scathing indictments of both religion and his former bandmates and band.  “Working Class Hero”, a folksy ballad that decries the destructive forces of conformity that squeeze the working class into the middle class, and the funky, stomping “Well Well Well”, which seems to poke fun at the very liberal sensibilities Lennon and Ono embraced, are other examples of this naked and raw take on songwriting.  Lennon often seems to be retreating into himself and his relationship with Ono, attempting to turn his back on his fame and former band.  “Look At Me”, a quiet, tender song built around Lennon’s finger picking guitar, emphasizes a point made in other songs (notably “God”) that Lennon is looking only to himself and his wife to define who he is.  For an album that is as confessional as this, lyrics like this are definitely a boundary put up by Lennon to separate himself from his former band, his stardom, and even his fans. 

 

Lennon’s second proper solo album, 1971’s Imagine, continued in this vein.  “How Do You Sleep” is a vicious attack on former bandmate Paul McCartney (“The only thing you done was ‘Yesterday’; “The sound you make is Muzak to my ears”, etc.). “Gimme Some Truth” lashes out at the conservative right and was covered by Billy Idol’s first punk band Generation X on their first album.  “Jealous Guy” is an apology to Ono that was famously covered by Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music.  But of course the standout track is the title track, which has rightly become one of the most beloved and revered songs of Lennon’s and indeed of all time.  A magnificent composition that, unlike many of the other songs on this and its preceding album, does not hector or berate but instead simply asks in the sweetest way possible for the listener to simply consider harmony and peace as options.  In a career filled with songwriting high points, this ranks at or very near the top.

 

Lennon’s output for the rest of his life never really reached the apogee of Imagine.  That isn’t to say he didn’t put out some interesting stuff, but it often varied between being a little TOO strident (like most of the songs on 1972’s Some Time In New York City, which features songs about the Attica prison riots, radical feminism, the strife in Northern Ireland, and noted radicals Angela Davis and John Sinclair) and moving toward a more generic rock formula (such as in 1974’s Walls and Bridges, which gave him his biggest hit, the duet with Elton John “Whatever Gets You Through the Night”).  Most critics adored his 1975 cover album Rock and Roll, but I’ve always found it tepid; with the exception of a rave-up version of Buddy Holly’s “Peggy Sue” (the Beatles were named in honor of Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets, and indeed Holly was arguably one of the strongest influences on Lennon and McCartney’s pop songcraft) most of the other covers sound limp and weak; Lennon had so grown past these antecedents that covering them simply underscores how greatly he and his bandmates advanced rock from those simplistic beginnings, and Lennon mostly sounds like a middle-aged man trying to relive a past that isn’t all that relevant to his life anymore.  Lennon himself wrote a song that drew upon 50’s influences like doo-wop that was vastly better than most of the stuff here:  “Woman” from his final album, 1980’s Double Fantasy.

 

Like the other two Beatles who released solo albums before him, drummer Ringo Starr also used his cachet from the Beatles to indulge his innermost musical desire; in his case it wasn’t to make a soundtrack or an atonal avant-garde album but a cover album, called Sentimental Journey, released in 1970 weeks before McCartney’s solo effort.  Releasing a cover album itself wasn’t unusual—as mentioned above, Lennon himself eventually released a covers album in 1975—but the covers themselves were:  they were all pre-rock pop standards like “Night and Day”, “Bye Bye Blackbird”, and “Stardust”.  Listening now the album registers as a somewhat silly but heartfelt tribute to a simpler, pre-rock world.  

 

Starr took a radically different take for his follow-up album, 1970’s Beaucoup of Blues.  Here Starr relocated to Nashville, and, availing himself of the best session players that fine city had to offer, produced a country album which many feel was his best solo work.  The sweet fiddle work and smooth backing vocals by Elvis Presley’s former backup singers the Jordanaires, give songs like the title track a strong country authenticity.  “Without Her” is another excellent song, a cry-in-your-beer country moper that’s sweetly affecting.

 

It wasn’t until 1973’s Ringo that Starr seemed to rediscover his inner Beatle.  Pulling heavily on both his former bandmates (all three other Beatles contributing instrumentation, vocals or songwriting) as well as a host of other luminaries (including Marc Bolan, Robbie Robertson, Billy Preston, Steve Cropper, Randy Newman, Harry Nilsson, and Stephen Stills), Ringo released an album that was every bit as infectious and enjoyable as anything released by his bandmates.  The album had not one or even two but three bona fide hits:  the pleasantly maudlin “Photograph” (with its strings, horns, and heavy background vocals), the insanely catchy “Oh My My” (which, if it had different, less silly lyrics could easily be mistaken for a Beatles song), and Starr’s rock-solid cover of Johnny Burnette’s “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, and You’re Mine”.

 

Alas, Ringo’s consequent 70’s releases did not fare nearly so well either commercially or critically.  1974’s Goodnight Vienna was a modest success, buoyed by two covers, the Platters’ “Only You (And You Alone)”, and Hoyt Axton’s “No No Song”, but otherwise little stood out except a couple of songs:  “Husbands and Wives” lilts along like “Here, There, and Everywhere” or “She’s Leaving Home”.  “Back Off Boogaloo” has a twangy country backbone but the relentless rhythmic drive of “I Am the Walrus”.  1976’s Ringo’s Rotogravure fared even more poorly; only his cover of Carl Groszman’s “A Dose of Rock and Roll” (which featured Peter Frampton on guitar and Dr. John on keyboards) made the charts.  The songwriting was particularly degenerated; Ringo only contributed to the writing of three of the tracks her, relying instead on his former Beatle bandmates and others to shoulder the load, and it shows.  1977’s Ringo the 4^th was even weaker, producing no hit singles and failing to chart.  Clearly the bloom was off this particular Beatle rose.  Mired in a slick disco production, the entire album seems desperate; indeed, “Gave It All Up” seems to lament what he and the other Beatles lost by breaking up. 

 

Paul McCartney was the last Beatle to release an official solo album, but in another way was actually the first.  Like George Harrison, Paul was asked to create the soundtrack to a film, The Family Way, between recording Revolver and Sgt. Pepper’s in fall of 1966.  The result, a purely orchestral affair, was once one of the most highly sought after records for Beatlemaniacs because of its rarity, and because it evokes the ramped-up production of the latter album and its use of horns, strings, etc.  It is now available on iTunes and makes for a fun listen, though I’m not sure it needs purchasing. 

 

Paul’s first proper solo album was released shortly after the Beatles officially broke up, 1970’s McCartney.  Recorded in his home with Paul playing all of the instruments, McCartney has a homespun simplicity that seems light years from Sgt. Pepper’s.  At the time critics and fans alike were a little alarmed at how throwaway much of the album seemed to be, but with time it has come to be appreciated for its simplicity.  Indeed, with the recent “beard rock” trend in alternative music (as practiced by bands like Band of Horses, Vetiver, and Bon Iver), which has emphasized acoustic singer-songwriter music on traditional, typically acoustic instruments and recorded often outside of major studios, this album seems more relevant than ever. “Lovely Linda” (written, of course, for his wife Linda Eastman McCartney), is a sweet acoustic folk song along the lines of Gordon Lightfoot or James Taylor.  But this is Paul the popster at his most stripped down and still most melodic, and it’s one of my favorite songs on this album. “That Would Be Something” has a funkier, blusier vibe but is still a very basic song, consisting of Paul’s voice, acoustic guitar, and some simple rhythm tapped out.  “Every Night”, with its “ooh ooh oooh’s” almost pokes fun of Paul’s Beatle past (specifically songs like “She Loves You”).  “Junk” is another pop gem that deserves a listen.  Only on “Man We Was Lonely” does Paul seem to talk about his Beatles past specifically, singing, “Man we was lonely, yes we was lonely, and we was hard pressed to find a smile”, and “I used to ride on my fast city line, singing songs that I thought were mine alone, now let me lie with my love for the time I am home.”  Paul, like the other Beatles, felt trapped by the Beatles’ success and now is happy to be off the fame bandwagon, free to do whatever he wants.  The only hit from this album is the very Beatle-esque “Maybe I’m Amazed”, which is rightly considered a classic, with its piano accompaniment and Paul’s shouted vocals. 

 

To the frustration of critics and fans, McCartney continued in this relaxed vein for his sophomore effort, 1971’s Ram.  But Ram also contains Paul’s first real comments toward his former Beatles; Paul later confessed that on “Too Many People”, two lines were directed toward John Lennon:  “You took your lucky break and broke it in two” and “Too many people preaching practices”.  On “3 Legs” (which supposedly was his nickname for the other Beatles), he sings “Well I thought you was my friend but you let me down and put my heart around the bend”.  While the other Beatles and critics derided the album, it did have a couple of passable Beatlesque numbers, the more produced “Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey” and the string-and-horn accompanied “In the Back Seat of My Car”.

 

After Ram, Paul decided to work in more of a group setting and formed Wings.  While these are not technically solo albums, they nevertheless remain stamped almost exclusively by the imprimatur of Paul alone and while often derided for their light take on 70’s rock, Wings brought him the most success of any ex-Beatle.  “Live and Let Die”, “Silly Love Songs”, “With a Little Luck”, “My Love”, “Let ‘Em In”, and my two favorites, “Band On the Run” and “Jet”, were ubiquitous on the radio in the 70’s. “Band On the Run” contains one of the greatest bridges of any song ever, and is really more like two separate songs connected by this majesterial guitar/symphonic piece.  In that regard it has always reminded me of “We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions” by Queen.  And “Jet” to me, with its fuzzed out, rumbling bass, braying horns, and sweet backing vocals always struck me as being almost a glam rock song, a suspicion confirmed by the fact that it was quickly covered by Scottish glam rock band Iron Virgin. 

 

Interestingly, the other huge group of the 60’s, the Rolling Stones, didn’t start releasing solo albums until well after their band had dissipated most of its musical relevance in the mid-80’s.  However, another famous band from the 60’s, the Byrds, yielded an alumnus who made several solo albums that have become highly prized obscure classics.  Gene Clark formed the Byrds along with David Crosby and Roger McGuinn in 1964 and became their most noted songwriter, penning such classics as “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better” and “Eight Miles High”.  But discord in the band led to his departure in 1966.  In 1967 Clark released his first solo album, Gene Clark with the Gosdin Brothers, which highlighted Clark’s incredible songwriting talent and his ability to fuse country and rock.  Clark worked here with a stellar array of musicians, including some former Byrds (Chris Hillman and Michael Clarke), future Byrds (Clarence White), bluegrass banjoist Doug Dillard, the Wrecking Crew sessions players (Glen Campbell and Leon Russell), and country harmony masters the Gosdin Brothers.  The standout track here is the sweet, jangly “Tried So Hard”, which stands proudly next to the best of other country rock greats like Gram Parsons. 

 

Clark’s second album was a more formal collaboration with Doug Dillard titled The Fantastic Expedition of Dillard & Clark, which is an extremely rare and valued recording even to this day (it is not available on iTunes but is uploaded to YouTube and is available on Pandora) and has achieved near-legendary status among country rock aficionados.  Dillard’s banjo is usually utilized in a subtle, highly complementary way to Clark’s songs, never overpowering them but adding wonderful country nuances to each song.  “Out on the Side”, the album opener, is simply fantastic, and highlights Clark’s mournful vocals, reminding me of Buffalo Springfield’s “For What Its Worth”.  “She Darked the Sun” brings Dillard’s banjo playing a little more to the fore, but the focus here is still Clark’s quavering country voice.  “Train Leaves Here This Morning” and “With Care From Someone” are also fantastic, the latter particularly highlighting Dillard’s smooth, sweet banjo picking.   But there really isn’t a bad song here; if there’s a flaw, it’s that the entire album is so solid and strong that nothing really stands out for better or worse.  But it remains a highly respected if obscure country rock accomplishment.  Clark and Dillard released a second album together, 1969’s Through the Morning, Through the Night, which continued in this vein (the title track and “Polly Come Home” were covered by Robert Plant and Alison Krause on their 2007 smash Raising Sand). 

 

After breaking up Dillard & Clark, Gene Clark recorded and released an album alternatively known as White Light (for its cover photograph and for one of its standout songs) or Gene Clark.  Like his previous collaborations with the Gosdins and the Dillards, this album has since become revered as a staggering country rock accomplishment.  As mentioned, the title track is phenomenal but again it’s hard to pick out any songs that aren’t outstanding. “For a Spanish Guitar” with its aching, plaintive vocal and simple arrangement, is another stunner.  On “The Virgin”, Clark’s voice sounds almost like a more quavery, countrified version of Arlo Guthrie’s.

 

Alas, despite being hailed at the time as a masterpiece, White Light didn’t sell, and Clark’s next album, the almost equally revered Roadmaster, was released only in Holland.  Clark even recorded two songs on Roadmaster featuring all five original Byrds, “One in a Hundred”, a magnificent song that is a perfect balance of the jangle and harmonies of early Byrds with the countrified touches of late Byrds, and the lilting, almost haunting “She’s the Kind of Girl”.   This album is also sadly not widely commercially available but has been kindly uploaded to YouTube for people with taste to check out.  It’s almost criminal how under-appreciated Clark, and this album, are; “Full Circle Song” off it could indeed be a commentary by Clark himself about the vagaries of life: “Funny how the circle turns around; first you’re up, then you’re down again”. 

 

Undaunted, Clark came back with 1974’s No Other, which again utilized a dizzying array of top shelf musicians and collaborators but ramped up the production, adding big choruses, strings, and other touches that had been mostly lacking from Clark’s previous, more spartan records.  But the album spawned three more (at least by my reckoning) Clark classics:  “Silver Raven”, which may be one of the most beautiful country songs ever recorded.  Leaving aside the usual country tropes, Clark’s song evokes the dignity and desolation of the plight of the American Indian in a way that few songs have ever managed.  His plaintive, twangy voice manages to bridge the entirety of the Western experience, from that sad fate of our Native Americans to the cowboys who once rode the lonesome range to the ecological changes that have destroyed much of the Old West.  Sad, sweet, desolate, but never depressing, this song is almost stunning in its beautiful simplicity.  On our recent vacation through South Dakota, northwestern Nebraska, Wyoming, and Montana, this song kept playing through my head as we hammered across the stark but stunning landscape.  “Strength of Strings” also has a Native American feel to it musically and a lyrical emphasis on the invariance of change.  And finally, “From a Silver Phial” is another sensationally beautiful home run, with its central piano focus; it reminds me of a cross between the coda of Eric Clapton’s “Layla” and Michael Martin Murphey’s classic, tragic 70’s country rock story song “Wildfire” (which, despite its corniness, I adored as a child in the 70’s and still love today).  This and “Silver Raven” showcase Gene Clark at his finest, as easily the equal of such country rock luminaries as Gram Parsons.

 

Another hugely popular 60’s group was the Beach Boys.  While Brian Wilson was rightly considered a pop/songwriting genius (“Good Vibrations” is one of the best songs recorded in the 60’s in my opinion), his brother Dennis Wilson was mostly known for two things:  being the only Beach Boy who actually surfed, and for befriending Charles Manson before the latter became more renowned for his sociopathy than for his music.  But in the late 70’s Dennis released a solo album called Pacific Blue.  By this time Dennis was a dissolute wreck from living the high life after years of Beach Boys success, and his voice had become gravelly and hoarse in places.  But on occasions he produced a capable version of the sweet harmonies for which he and his brothers are known.  The album (which is actually the focus of the character in Eat the Document which prompted this post) is a heavily produced sprawling mess of singer-songwriter ambitions, but played alongside other 70’s monoliths like Fleetwood Mac or the Doobie Brothers it doesn’t sound out of place and actually has a sweet if maudlin charm.  “The River Song” is a huge, lush, strings and production affair but comes the closest to extending what he and his brothers did in the Beach Boys in a new 70’s direction.  “Dreamer” and the title track have a weird, funky vibe that makes them sound like something midway between Joe Cocker and Joe Walsh.  “Thoughts of You” and “Time” feature Wilson bordering on mawkish, crooning at the piano (though the former also has a big, orchestral bridge) about his regrets and losses over the years.  “You and I” is another soft rocker that evokes a less prog Steely Dan. 

 

Wilson was reputedly disappointed in Pacific Blue, and set about recording a follow-up in 1978 known as Bambu.  Wilson never completed this album but it the studio tracks were heavily bootlegged even before his death in 1983 from drowning.  Bambu continues on in this mostly low-key vein (it should be recalled that Wilson was co-author of what was arguably one of the biggest soft rock ballads/prom slow dance songs of all time, “You Are So Beautiful”, so this mellow, melancholy vein should perhaps not be surprising).  “Love Surrounds Me” almost sounds like a moped out Supertramp song but is probably the best song here, but I like “Wild Situation” for its soft gospel-like backing vocals and pulsing rhythm, “Common” for its uplifting tone, and the largely autobiographical “He’s a Bum” for its naked honesty. (Pacific Blue and Bambu are available as a combined album on iTunes).  Its interesting to speculate what might have happened had Wilson released Bambu in 1978; while disco was obviously making huge inroads into the rock/pop charts, there was still plenty of singer-songwriter stuff like this all over the charts then.  Instead it’s become a cult classic.

 

Few groups were as huge as Kiss were in the late 70’s.  But Peter Criss left (or was kicked out) in 1980 and embarked on his own solo career.  Now, Criss and the other members of Kiss had all released solo albums together in 1978, but those were more or less under the Kiss imprimatur.  In 1980 Criss released his first true post-Kiss solo record, Out of Control, which perhaps not surprisingly found him carrying forward in two familiar veins:  some of the songs sound extremely Kiss-esque while others ape his one successful turn as Kiss vocalist, “Beth”, in being more R&B oriented.  An example of the former is “In Trouble Again”, which has the driving rhythm and cowbell of early Kiss classics like “Strutter” and in particular “Deuce”. The title track sounds eerily like “Eye of the Tiger” by Survivor but presaged that song by over 3 years.  “By Myself” is Criss’ attempt to recapture the lightning in a bottle of “Beth”, a quiet ballad of acoustic guitars and Criss’ raspy vocals.  It isn’t terrible, but it seemed obvious that lightning wasn’t going to strike twice.  “I Found Love” is a straight-ahead new wave tinged early 80’s rocker that again while not terrible doesn’t raise to the heights of his previous band either.  Criss also covers Pat Benetar’s “You Better Run” and this is probably the album’s low point; he puts little of the spunk and energy into it that Benetar did.  “My Life” walks arguably the best line between his attempts at balladry and his rocker tendencies.

 

Criss released his follow-up, Let Me Rock You, in 1982.  Somewhat more new-wave-y than its predecessor, it didn’t have much success either.  But “Let It Go” is a catchy slice of early 80’s rock that straddles the line between the catchy pop rock and the new wave tinged rock of the time.  “Tears” is a mellower song, not quite a ballad but not quite a rocker, it’s nevertheless catchy in a John Waite sort of way (unsurprising since Waite co-wrote it).  “Destiny” is another straight-ahead but melodic rocker written by famed songwriter Charlie Midnight (who has written songs for everyone from Carly Simon to Britney Spears) and Neal Schon of Journey (and sounds not a little like the latter’s “Separate Ways”).

 

There are obviously numerous more examples of solo albums from the 70’s, 80’s, and into the current day, and I’m sure I’ll be returning to this topic in future posts.  But it’s very interesting to me to roam across some of these albums by huge named artists, some of whom continued to have success but many of whom didn’t.  They left behind albums that at the time didn’t strike a chord with listeners but with the tincture of time have often found receptive and appreciative audiences.  Like I said, it’s hard for me to listen to early solo albums by artists like Paul McCartney or Gene Clark and not hear the echoes of much of today’s alternative rock, which has rediscovered 70’s singer songwriters and folk/country/traditional sounds (most notably artists like Bon Iver and the Avett Brothers) in a big way.  And I’m glad.  This is good music and its enjoyable to see where today’s kid can take it.  As I write this I’m listening to Vetiver’s cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Hurry On Sundown”, a raucous, infectious take on this classic song.

 

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention here one of my favorite solo songs, a song that actually celebrates going solo, Peter Gabriel’s “Solbury Hill”.  Written by Gabriel in 1977 after his departure from the 70’s supergroup Genesis, it discusses a mystical experience he had during this period, as well as his doubts and fears about leaving this popular group at nearly their peak of popularity.  This is one of my favorite songs of all time, and I think of it any time I experience fearful life changes, like recently, when my job and actually career have undergone some pretty dramatic changes and the future seems scary and anxious.  When Gabriel sings the final lines,

Today I don't need a replacement

 I'll tell them what the smile on my face meant

My heart going boom boom boom

"Hey" I said

"You can keep my things, they've come to take me home”,

I always think about him taking the biggest chance of his life, and not only surviving but thriving, and I instantly feel better about myself.

 

The Worst Albums Ever?

Squeeze--the most polarizing album ever?

I’ve posted several times about how one of my favorite things to do is to go back and listen to albums deemed terrible (for whatever reason) by critics or fans and see if it actually is as bad as everyone claims.  In a previous post, I discussed two such albums, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, which while not a total flop was far from the success of Rumours and was widely derived as a drug-fueled mess, and Kiss’ Unmasked and Music from the Elder albums.  To me, both stand up much better with time than would have been thought given the reviews at the time. 

If you Google “Worst Album” or “Worst Rock Song” you get a lot of interesting lists.  Interestingly, many of these seem to focus predominantly on music released in the last 10-15 years, stuff like Limp Bizkit, Nickelback, Creed, etc.  It is beyond doubt that we’ve seen an alarming spike in douchiness in music in the past 15 years.  But every era has its cringe-worthy, sucktacular shit sandwiches.  In the 70’s you had “Seasons in the Sun” by Terry Jacks, “You Light Up My Life” by Debbie Boone, “Billy Don’t Be a Hero”,  pretty much everything by Barry Manilow and the Captain & Tennille, “Escape (the Pina Colada Song)” by Rupert Holmes, “Afternoon Delight” by Starland Vocal Band, teen pap like “Heartbeat (It’s a Love Beat)" by the Defranco Family (as well as numerous abominations by the Brady Bunch, Osmonds, Partridge Family, etc.), the entire Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band soundtrack, etc. 

The 80’s gave us lots of other horrors, primarily 60’s and 70’s bands attempting to maintain their popularity by coating their music in a patina or new wave synths or pop metal hooks.  Starship and Heart are two of the biggest offenders here; most people consider “We Built This City” to be a strong contender for the worst song of all time.  The 80’s also saw a rise in movie/TV star vanity albums, everything from Eddie Murphy (“My Girl Wants to Party All the Time” is another leading candidate for worst song ever) to Don Johnson’s “Heartbeat” (ditto) to Bruce Willis’ entire Return of Bruno album (thritto).  The 80’s brought us soft rock nightmares from Mr. Mister, Christopher Cross, Air Supply, Wham!,  Rick Astley, and the Beach Boys (“Wake Me Up Before you Go Go”, “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Kokomo” often are top-5 on many “Worst Ever” lists).  Novelty songs like Taco’s “Puttin’ On the Ritz” or “The Curly Shuffle” are also notable in their badness.  The early 80’s saw a proliferation of new wave haircut bands, most of which dropped a musical deuce or two before sliding away.  I would also vote for most everything released by every hair metal band in that decade, but most notably everything by the “W” bands (Whitesnake, Warrant, Winger), with special honors going to “Cherry Pie”, which to me is WAY worse than anything Starship or the Defrancos could have foisted on humanity. 

The 90’s had their shitzophrenic moments too.  Wilson Philips, Gerardo, Vanilla Ice, Right Said Fred,  “Barbie Girl” by Aqua, Billy Ray Cyrus, “Macarena”, 4 Non Blondes, Roxette, Celine Dion, the list goes on and on.  In fact, I might argue that the 90’s gave us more musical crap than any decade.  But really, I honestly believe that EVERY decade gives us the best of times and the blurst of times, to paraphrase the Simpsons.  No decade had a monopoly on good OR bad music. 

Interestingly, NPR did an “All Things Considered” (which is available as a podcast) where a panel of discussants tried to decide which decade was the “worst”, and most of them felt the 80’s won this dubious honor.  But the ever-insightful and brilliant Carrie Brownstein (she of Slater-Kinney fame who has achieved even greater exposure in her newest band Wild Flag and as half of the duo who make the hilarious comedy show Portlandia) tried to counter this by mentioning all the GREAT music made in that decade (she cited R.E.M., Husker Du, Black Flag, the Replacements, etc., all cogent examples).  And again I would very much agree with this; there is no best, there is no worst, it’s all kind of cut from the same cloth.  Every decade, every era, gives us memorable songs and not-so-memorable ones.

Bad music can come from everywhere but certain genres predominate.  Teen pop has long been a major source of forgettable music, starting with the Monkees, Bobby Sherman, Shaun Cassidy, Menudo, New Edition, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany and New Kids on the Block, the Spice Girls, Britney Spears, 98 Degrees, Backstreet Boys, ‘NSYNC, and continuing on to today’s Justin Bieber and so forth.  Novelty songs are almost by definition lame because by the time they come out the fad they celebrate is usually on its way out—“Kung Fu Fighting", "Convoy” and “Disco Duck” are perfect examples. 

So there’s a lot of bad music out there.  But in the field of obscure music there’s two albums that are often considered the worst ever, but for different reasons.  Interestingly, they were made by two individuals who were members of the same band, and furthermore it’s a band that’s one of the most revered of all time for their enormous impact and inspiration:  The Velvet Underground.

Everyone of course knows that the history of punk and alternative music starts with the Velvets, who were formed in 1964 by the disparate duo of former Brill Building novelty songwriter Lou Reed and avant-garde drone/minimalist musician John Cale.   After adding second guitarist Sterling Morrison and androgynous drummer Maureen (Mo) Tucker, the Velvets gigged around New York City and eventually hooked up with artist Andy Warhol, who insisted they add model/chanteuse Nico as vocalist.  Their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico (with its iconic Warhol-designed banana cover) was not a hit, but as Brian Eno famously said, almost everyone who DID buy it ended up forming a band.  Reed’s songwriting focused on the seamier side of life, including drug use, sado-masochism and so forth.  But aside from the lyrical content, and John Cale’s highly avant-garde electric viola drones on a few songs, it wasn’t THAT outrageous.  The two songs that achieved the greatest notoriety, “Waiting for the Man” and “Heroin”, are actually not too crazy sonically speaking, though the guitar on “Man" is more strident than people were probably used to hearing in 1967.  Even at this early stage Reed and Cale were walking a marvelous balance between writing songs with sonic dissonance (like “Man” and the very droning “Venus in Furs” and “Black Angel’s Death Song” and owe much to Cale’s classical training and education, particularly with La Monte Young) and sweet, gentle pop songs of an almost ethereal evanescence.  My favorite songs of this album are actually three of the latter, all of which were sung by Nico (who’s presence in the band was hugely resented by Reed, particularly after they slept together then promptly broke up).  “All Tomorrow’s Parties” is the most dissonant of the three, with Reed and Morrison noodling and strumming atonal non-blues licks while Cale drones on in the background.  Nico’s voice here is extremely flat and Teutonic, almost off-putting in its foreign-ness.  To me this is the quintessential VU&N song, outré without being unlistenable.  This is absolutely a top song for me.  “Femme Fatale” is a close second on this album.  Much sweeter and more melodic than “Parties”, and with a less strident vocal from Nico, this should have been a huge hit in a different, more perfect world.  It is nothing but a sweet pop song, marred only by Reed’s braying Long Island accent on his backing vocals (though I actually like how they counterpoint Nico’s booming but sweet Germanic delivery).  “I’ll Be Your Mirror” is another sweet, affecting pop song but to me it isn’t quite as catchy and touching as “Femme”.

After parting ways with both Warhol and Nico in 1967, the Velvets recorded and released their second album, White Light/White Heat.  Here they dispensed almost entirely with the sweeter, catchier pop elements of their debut—the one glaring exception being the understated “Here She Comes Now”--and focused instead on ramping up the atonal, dissonant elements.  The title track, with its lilting piano and the buzzsaw roar of the music is probably the most listenable song aside from “Here”.  “The Gift” and "Lady Godiva’s Operation” are strange, spoken word interludes “sung” predominantly by Cale while the band noodles atonally in accompaniment.  The one thing I love about “Lady Godiva’s Operation” is how it shifts from Cale’s smooth Welsh vocals to Reed’s strident Long Island honk.  It’s like he and Cale looked at Reed’s voice as a unique instrument to exploit for pushing the sonic limitations of the song.    Perhaps the most challenging song on an admittedly challenging album is “I Heard Her Call My Name”, with its frantic tempo and wild squalls of sludgy guitar; this is one of my other favorites from this album.

But the centerpiece of this album, and perhaps of the Velvet’s whole career, is the seventeen-plus minute opus “Sister Ray”, which has a funky, bluesy, catchy rhythm.  Here the atonality kind of rides along below the groove . . . for awhile, then it of course explodes and goes insane with the wildly improvised “solos” played by the various band members, but most notably Cale and his keyboards.  This is hands down Cale’s finest moment as a member of the Velvets, the perfect melding of his neo-classical background with the wildness of 60’s rock.  Of all the other attempts to move rock beyond the usual 2-4 minute anthem stage, perhaps only the Doors’ “The End” comes close to matching the harrowing intensity and seductive rhythm achieved here.  My favorite part is the very end, when after finally returning after yet another frenetic Cale organ solo, the band suddenly speeds up to double time and ends the song rampaging along at runaway train speed before stopping suddenly and leaving their instruments wildly feeding back; it’s in this 30 seconds that you can hear nearly everything that came after, from the primitive roar of the Stooges (Iggy has been quoted as having heard the album very early in the Stooge’s career) to the blistering tempos of hardcore (particularly the Germs and Black Flag, who practically made careers centered around this exact sound).

Like most of my musical experiences, my exposure to the Velvets was very bass-ackward.  In much the same way as I was exposed to the Stooges, where my first album of theirs was their second, followed by their third and only then their first, my first Velvet Underground album was their third album, The Velvet Underground.  One of my roommates in college had this on vinyl and I instantly fell in love with it (and only then did I get into their second, and lastly their first, albums).  Cale had departed by this time, taking with him most of the harsher avant-garde elements, and was replaced by Doug Yule, formerly of the band the Grass Menagerie.  The Velvet Underground is an almost quiet and introspective album, particularly compared to the incredible harshness of White Light/White Heat.   Side one is a particular revelation, showing again Reed’s ability to craft magnificently beautiful pop songs almost effortlessly.    Yule’s presence in the band is emphatically established in the very first song, “Candy Says”, which was sung by Yule.  The song is sweet and introspective and sets the tone for this album being a strong departure from their manic second album.   The next song is probably my favorite Velvets song of all time, “What Goes On”, which is almost like a blues holler song but then goes into an extended atonal  dual guitar and organ solo that shows that they haven’t lost all their avant-garde leanings despite Cale’s departure.  This was the song that really introduced me to the intensity of the Velvets.  The next song, the funky “Some Kinda Love” is another personal favorite, and its lyrics provided the title for a subsequent Lou Reed anthology, Between Thought and Expression.    This is the Velvets at their bluesiest and funkiest; the thumping rhythm seems to have been taken from “Sister Ray” and repurposed for a less raving, more mellow song featuring some of Lou Reed’s weirdest lyrics yet (“Put jelly on your shoulder; let us do what you fear most”).  “Pale Blue Eyes” is another soft, slow, mellow song like “Candy Says”; its good but it goes on about one verse too long in my opinion.    “Jesus” is a strange song for a guy who wrote about sado-masochism and hard drug abuse to write; it’s literally a modern-day psalm and might be the Velvets’ most unusual song.  “I’m Beginning to See the Light” is much more “vintage” Velvets—catchy, rollicking, but also with elements of stridency to it.  “I’m Set Free” is yet another high point, noodling along like “Heroin” but building to a big loud chorus that ends with Reed telling us he’s been set free “to find a new illusion”.

Alas, their third album was no better selling than their first two and so the Velvets were soon dropped by their record company.  They toured and recorded more material but none of this was released at the time; some of their live material was released as a live album a few years later; the studio stuff was compiled into 1985’s VU.  In 1970 they released their fourth album, Loaded.  Pressured by their new record label, Atlantic, to produce some radio-friendly hits, Reed complied but felt increasingly uncomfortable with this new direction.  As a result, fewer songs were sung by him and more by Yule.  The poppy, peppy “Who Loves the Sun” is catchy and affecting but by 1970 this go-go style of music was pretty passé.  “Sweet Jane” and “Rock and Roll” of course became two of Reed’s more popular songs; “Sweet Jane” is my favorite from this album but I also like the hip, funky “Cool It Down” and “Head Held High” (which reminds me of “Beginning to See the Light”).  “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” is very strange, a honky-tonk rave-up sung by  Yule that sounds closer to Little Feat than it does the Stooges.  “Train Round the Bend” is the only song that even marginally captures some of the edginess of their prior work, but even here the fuzzed-out guitar is muted and sounds more like Ray Manzarek’s organ on “Hello, I Love You”.  Yule sings the final track, the introspective, 70’s-sounding “Oh! Sweet Nuthin’”, which is another terrific song and should have been a big hit.

Even if it had, it might not have changed the outcome:  Reed, disaffected by the record company’s involvement and wanting a new set of challenges, left before the album was even finished, and even if there had been a hit its dubious as to whether he’d have returned.  Reed of course went on to a memorable if up-and-down solo career, achieving success with the song “Walk on the Wild Side” off the Bowie-produced Transformer.  But in 1975 Reed released an album that has polarized critics and listeners ever since:  Metal Machine Music.  Consisting entirely of vocal-less over-modulated guitar feedback split into 4 “songs”, one to a side, Metal Machine Music was a shockingly radical departure from the tuneful if eccentric songs he’d written on his four prior solo releases.  To this day fierce debate rages about whether this was an intentional act of creation by Reed (Reed himself swears it is), an emphatic “fuck you” to his record label, or a deliberate act of self-sabotage toward his career.  The answer may well be “d, all of the above”.  Even divorced from the strongly negative feelings of his fans at the time of release, with almost forty years of perspective, it’s still hard to appreciate what, if any, musical statement Reed was trying to make.  The song is, however, not without precedent in Reed’s own catalog.  Many Velvet Underground songs took a harsh, atonal approach sonically, particularly “I Heard Her Call My Name”, though admittedly none so completely abandoned traditional song structure and mechanics (“I Heard Her Call My Name” had lyrics and vocals for example).  In 1966, in the earliest days of the Velvets, Andy Warhol and his associate David Dalton released a multimedia “magazine” containing a flexi-disk with the song “Loop” on it, which was credited to the Velvet Underground but was actually produced by Cale.  “Loop” consists of a loud, atonal feedback drone that builds and subsides in a way that does seem to eerily presage Reed’s work in “Metal Machine Music”.  “Loop” itself seems to recall the work of La Monte Young from this period, particularly “For Brass”, which isn’t surprising given Cale’s affiliation with Young prior to forming the Velvets.  “Metal Machine Music” also seems to presage some of the mid to late 70’s work by avant-classical composers such as John Cage, Glenn Branca (such as “Symphony #3 Gloria Third Movement” and “Lesson No. 1 for Electric Guitar”, and Rhys Chatham’s “Guitar Trio”.  Obviously much electronic and industrial music shares an affiliation with this music as well. 

So what’s the answer?  My personal feeling is that as music MMM is not effective—it’s too dissonant, too purposefully difficult to listen to to be considered a success.  If Reed WAS trying to push music in a new direction, he failed miserably (at least initially), since nobody really took this and tried to expand on it, nor did he ever make any attempt to follow up on it.  As a statement, as a concept, I think it succeeds, particularly if placed in the context of avant-garde 60’s and 70’s classical, particularly drone and minimalist classical.  But it still remains one of the oddest experiments by an artist ever, and as mentioned still divides fans and critics alike as to its merits.

The second polarizing album that is the focus of this post evolved out of the Velvet Underground’s history post-Lou Reed.  Reed did not own the name, this was owned by manager Steve Sesnick, and so despite the departure of inarguably the Velvet’s driving force and main talent, Sesnick decided to push on with the Velvet name and the Velvet Underground, now consisting of Doug Yule on lead guitar and vocal, Sterling Morrison on rhythm guitar, Mo Tucker on drums, and Yule’s former Grass Menagerie bandmate Walter Powers on bass.  This incarnation of the Velvets toured the East Coast and Europe before Morrison too decided he’d had enough and left to obtain his Ph.D. in medieval literature.  He was replaced by Willie Alexander, a third member of the Grass Menagerie.  The Yule/Powers/Alexander/Tucker version of the Velvets toured England and the Netherlands in Fall 1971.  Sesnick managed to secure the band (probably based on name and reputation alone) a record deal with Polydor in England.  In fall of 1972 Yule recorded Squeeze in London; by this time Mo Tucker, while ostensibly a member of the band, was not included in the recording sessions and the percussion was handled instead by former Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice.

It has been reported that the decision to release this album under the Velvet Underground name was Sesnick’s alone, since he controlled it at this point.  The extent to which Yule was involved in this decision is hotly debated, and indeed Squeeze itself remains one of the most controversial albums of all time.  Velvet purists (or snobs) insist that it is an abomination against nature and they scream for Yule’s blood for participating in such a grotesquerie.  But I’m not sure.  First of all, as mentioned, Yule may not have had much say-so in this matter given that Sesnick controlled everything on the business end at this point.  Almost assuredly Polydor gave him the recording contract based on the Velvet name, which was pretty respected in Europe by this time (it was around this time that David Bowie was covering in concert versions of “I’m Waiting for the Man” and “White Light/White Heat”, bringing his love of Lou Reed’s music and songwriting to a whole new audience).  They may not have had much choice in the matter.  Second, even if he DID have some say in the outcome, I think it’s pretty hypocritical of anyone to criticize Yule, for many reasons.  Until YOU’VE had a chance to be in someone else’s shoes and have to make that decision, I don’t think you can really criticize someone.  Complicating matters was the fact that the Velvets had from the very beginning had a rotating lineup, rarely having the same personnel from one album to the next.  Hell, Yule was one of the main stable elements, playing on the last three albums (including Squeeze and not including the live albums).  Related to this, the Velvets changed styles so easily and often that there isn’t anything stylistic that separates Squeeze from the rest of the Velvets canon; again, if anything Squeeze is at least sonically and lyrically similar to Loaded, which is more than you can say about any other two Velvet albums.  The fact that Reed was detaching even during the recording of Loaded, and subsequently gave lead vocals to Yule for 4 songs of the 10 songs on that album, makes the transition between Loaded and Squeeze even more smooth. 

And the final thing I have to say about this is, unlike Reed’s Metal Machine Music, Squeeze isn’t bad.  If you completely divorce yourself from the controversy of this being labeled a Velvet Underground album, you can see that it is actually an interesting document of early 70’s rock.  “Little Jack” starts kind of like Dylan’s “Tangled Up in Blue” but then it has a jaunty, almost 60’s garage-folk feel.  I love the twangy guitar here and the acidulous solo (Yule played all instruments save drums).  This song is one of many on this album that does not fall far at all from the Velvet tree; Yule had clearly paid attention to Reed’s songwriting and here and on many other songs does a VERY credible job of writing in the same vein. 

“Crash”, the second song, is a rollicking little piano ditty that quotes extensively from “Martha My Dear” by the Beatles (It also reminds me of “Make Up” off Reed’s Transformer album), the lyrics are a little corny, and it’s not one of my favorites.  “Caroline” too is sort of weak, with its faux-barbershop/Beach Boys chorus that vaguely recalls “Lonesome Cowboy Bill” off Loaded. 

“Mean Old Man” starts with a big riff but then settles into a smooth 70’s bar band-ish groove complete with soulful female backing vocals.  “Dopey Joe” has the most Lou Reed-ish vocals of any song on Squeeze and its horns and swinging rhythm remind me of some of the pub rock that would emerge from the London music scene in a couple of years when more people rediscovered basic bar band rock.  Another thing this reminds me of is some of Jim Croce’s work, specifically “Bad Bad Leroy Brown”.

“Wordless” is another Beatles-Velvets mash-up; anyone liking both bands would probably like this song.  But the standout track on this album is “She’ll Make You Cry”, which is easily as good as anything on Loaded and could probably nestle comfortably on The Velvet Underground without embarrassment.  It starts with a piercing guitar by Yule that has a slight country twang before launching into his very Reed-esque vocal.  The vocal harmonies on the chorus kind of sound like Crosby Stills and Nash a little.  This song is quite good, as is the next one, “Friends”, which clearly samples the light, evanescent feel of “Pale Blue Eyes” and “Candy Says” (which was of course sung by Yule) off The Velvet Underground.  The backing vocals are very Beatle-esque—soft, sweet “ooooh”s and “aaaaah”s. 

“Send No Letter” is a higher tempo rave-up with a prominent piano line that’s okay but is probably a minute or two long.  “Jack and Jane” is more of a slow bump and grind that emphasizes its pulsing bass and honking sax.  “Louise”, the album ender, is really reminiscent of mid- and late-era Beatles, a cross between “Lovely Rita” and “Maggie Mae”, but with twinges of Mott the Hoople and/or Badfinger. 

The final verdict?  This would be a marvelously valuable musical artifact that would probably be revered and the LP auctioned on eBay for thousands of dollars had it been released as a Yule solo album.  Musically there’s nothing here that’s shameful or terrible, and indeed most of it actually stands up pretty well, particularly in light of its sources of comparison (the Velvets, the Beatles, Lou Reed’s solo work).  If you put this on between Loaded and Let It Be, most people at the party wouldn’t even blink twice. 

But I can also sympathize with people who are outraged at this being considered a Velvet Underground album.  I’ve lived my entire adult life in the “permanent nostalgia tour” era of music, when bands no longer ever break up when they’re out of musical ideas, they instead continue to tour and rake in money from ever-aging fans wishing to reclaim their own youth.  Even that’s not the worst crime in the world—if you can still play, and there’s still people who will pay to see you do so, what’s wrong with that?  But it does make music a little like watching a cannibal trying to eat his own self.  It’s kind of grotesque and never-ending, and it detracts somewhat (at least in my opinion) from viable, fertile bands who are continuing to try to make new music.  If all of us just retreated to our little bubble of nostalgia and listened to music from XX years ago, we’d never see anything new and interesting being made.  I’m reminded of Homer Simpson saying “Everyone knows rock achieved perfection in 1974”; while we may quibble about the exact year, most of us have a mental  time zone in which we feel most comfortable.  Again, nothing wrong with that, but life is also about moving yourself OUT of your comfort zone, at least occasionally.  If we don’t accept new challenges, new stimuli, we stagnate, and so does our culture.  When a critical mass of people is no longer interested in trying something new, what happens to our society? 

This gets even worse when bands DO split up but then try to continue on as some two-headed monster; “Dennis DeYoung’s Styx” and “The Original Styx” and so forth come to mind.  And I DO have a REAL problem with some minor role player, particularly if he or she was a johnny-come-lately to a band that achieved its greatest success before they arrived, trying to lamely carry on the band under their own aegis.  In college one of the frat houses advertised that “Fishbone” was going to play one of their rush parties.  Ordinarily I wouldn’t be caught dead in a frat house but I and a bunch of other folks dutifully trekked down Gayley and stood around their beer soaked rumpus room . . . only to find out it was a band where ONE GUY had ONCE been a horn player for Fishbone!  Needless to say my punk friends and I were pissed off and tore the place apart. 

I don’t know why I’m willing to give Yule a pass here, given those feelings.  But for some reason I guess I DON’T hold him accountable for Steve Sesnick’s questionable business ethics, nor to I blame him for trying to make a go of it and doing the best job he could.  Often in life we have to play the cards we’re dealt whether they’re winners or not; Yule did an acceptable job of putting out something that isn’t a total embarrassment to the Velvet Underground brand.  Call it whatever you like, it’s still an enjoyable slice of 70’s pop/rock from a guy who apprenticed with one of the great songwriters of all time and who clearly learned a thing or two in the process. 

Cool Nerds: A Couple of 80's New Wave Oddities

LA's Burning Sensations

I haven’t posted in far too long, and to anyone who is following this blog regularly I apologize.  I’m starting a new job next year and due to a wrinkle of fate I actually am still being paid by my old job while I prepare materials for this new job, so I’ve been focusing on that.  But I’d like to get back into the swing of posting regularly, specifically I still have voluminous posts coming on country rock, on electronica, another post on post-rock, among others.  But to get my feet wet I’m writing today’s post which focuses on three obscure songs that I first discovered via their music videos.  For those of us old enough to remember, before there was Wikipedia, before there was All Music Guide, before there was iTunes, before there was YouTube, before there was even an internet, one of the main places to get exposed to new music was via music videos.    I spent my formative years in Southern California, which did not get MTV until very late in my “childhood” (I think I was in high school), and so even if my parents HAD wanted to spend money on cable TV (which they did not) I couldn’t have seen it.  My first exposure to MTV was through friends who got it then.  At one point around my senior year of high school, my aunt Kris (who is only 2 years older than me and has always been more like a big sister) and I house sat for some family friends who had MTV and I can remember us watching it endlessly even though it was a massive letdown because it was so insufferably BORING—they showed very few videos even then and it seems in retrospect that they spent at least an equal amount of time shilling themselves—the constant station IDs (this was back in the “Moon Man” phase), the endless promotional contests (the one during this period of time was “Be a Roadie for Bruce Springsteen”, which couldn’t have appealed LESS to me at the time given my European synthpop/new wave obsession).  Mostly it seemed very East Coast—very New York centered, very much NOT hip to the new wave feeling of the time.

Where did we get our music videos if not from MTV?  Well, I’ve already posted several times about the show MV3, a local Southern California show that combined videos with a studio dance format.  MV3 was world-changing to my friends and I, primarily because of the studio dancers and their various tribal new wave styles.  In Long Beach, where we lived, very few people dressed like mods or like new wavers or rockabilly cats, mostly everyone skulked around in their preppy fashions—plaid or brightly colored golf pants, polo style shirts, sweaters tied around the neck, Topsider boat shoes.  Seeing these other kids awash in the latest European/New York fashions was revelatory.  In fact, one of the main reasons I decided to attend college at UCLA (aside from the excellent academics of course) was because during the 1984 Olympics my family took me to several events at UCLA’s campus and driving through Westwood I saw TONS of people dressed in the cool fashions of the time.  I thought I’d died and gone to new wave heaven.

But MV3 was also the source of many odd, rare, distinctive videos back in the day too that were influential as well.  Many were by local bands that had scraped together enough money to make a video then begged or bribed MV3 into playing it.  Two groups in particular, Fishbone and the Bangles, achieved fame first as local celebrities for their music videos.  Fishbone’s “? (Modern Industry)” was immensely popular; I think I could still recite most if not all of the radio stations mentioned in that song from memory!  “The Real World” remains my favorite Bangles song of all time; I really love the catchy 60’s London swing to that song and even then I and most of my friends could tell that Susanna Hoffs was smokin’ hot, even shrouded up in 60’s fashions as she was. 

But there were songs that were even MORE obscure, and the bands that made them didn’t usually go on to big fame.   Burning Sensations was a band that kind of straddled this divide:  while they didn’t have much national recognition, they were pretty popular in Southern California primarily because of the video for their song “Belly of the Whale”.  The song itself is outstanding—a catchy blast of calypso/ska-infused rock—and the video looked like a hoot:  the band, some very attractive dancing girls/bathing beauties, and a bunch of other cool characters (their friends I presume) all hanging out in a club inside the aforementioned whale’s belly.  In its own way the video was like a weird LA answer to what might arguably be the coolest video of all time, the English Beat’s “Save it for Later”, which was shot in some weird bohemian beatnik cavern club and which convinced me and many others that England had to be the coolest country in the world.  Burning Sensations were fronted by Tim McGovern, who had formerly played guitar for the Motels (the “Whale” video even has a tribute, or is it a dig at? Martha Davis of the Motels, showing a doppelganger from her “Only the Lonely” video who pushes McGovern down the slide into the whale’s belly, a metaphor for her kicking him out perhaps?), and this song was their one big hit (though they did also achieve recognition for their cover of Jonathon Richman’s “Pablo Picasso” on the soundtrack for the excellent movie Repo Man).  McGovern’s look in this video was very fashion-forward:  he wears a slouchy “Rat Pack” style hat and a goatee, literally decades before every hipster douche on earth adopted this as their “unique” look.  Unfortunately after releasing one EP and one album Burning Sensations kind of faded into obscurity, but for one brief moment back in 1983 or so, they made LA seem as cool as London.

Another strange local gem was the video for the song “Cool Nerd” by Danny Schneider.  Schneider had started his musical career in northern California (supposedly at one point even auditioning for Sammy Hagar’s band.  He moved to LA and his band there, Speedlimit, had some limited (ha ha) exposure on LA’s premiere new wave radio station KROQ with their cover of Nancy Sinatra’s “These Boots Are Made For Walkin’”.  Amazingly, iTunes has not one but TWO compilations of Speedlimit’s output available, including this song as well as their main single, “In the Middle of the Night”, which sounds like a cross between REO Speedwagon or Loverboy and perhaps a David Byrne-fronted Animotion.  It’s pretty generic early 80’s new wave tinged bar/arena rock, sounding like something off the original Terminator soundtrack that might have been playing at “Tech Noir” just before Ah-nold strode in and gunned everyone down.  Schneider’s vocals sound like a weird hybrid between David Byrne’s strident nerdiness and the chirpiness of Gary Numan.  Weird stuff.

Anyhoo Schneider reached a larger audience (of at least one, i.e., me) when he went solo and released a single and video called “The Cool Nerd”.  The song is a swinging, sweet, rapidly plucked acoustic guitar ditty about a guy who’s such a nerd he loves to dance by himself.  Scheider’s high pitched vocals and that kicky beat make this song extremely catchy in a nerd rock kind of way that again evokes David Byrne or some other 80’s nerd icon.  In the video, Schneider acts out the part of the cool nerd in a way that was eye catching but it was really his beautiful, fluid guitar picking that made this stick in my memory for about 30 years (and counting).  The video is posted on YouTube by Schneider himself and as mentioned the song is available on iTunes. 

Even weirder was the song and video for “How To Pick Up Girls”, a song by two diminutive sisters from Canada known (a little perversely) as the Little Girls.  The song is really just straight-ahead bar band rock aside from the chirpy vocals by the Maso sisters but it became a (very) minor hit.  The video again is a combination performance/storyline where various cheesy mulletted Canadian guys try in vain to pick up the aforementioned (Little) girls.  The sisters’ strange faux-aerobics dancing style is about the most interesting thing about this video, aside from the fact that they achieved a form of immortality by dint of the fact that Bret Easton Ellis quotes the lyrics from one of their other songs, “The Earthquake Song”, in his now-legendary 80’s too-fast-too-soon coming-of-age novel “Less Than Zero”.  “The Earthquake Song” is a slice of neo-60’s hip-shaking that is very reminiscent of Josie Cotton’s “Johnny Are You Queer” and “You Could Be the One”.  A strangely peppy and throwaway song to be featured in such a dark book (which primarily quotes or mentions lyrics by more durable acts like X, Randy Newman, Led Zeppelin, etc.).