My phone led me to a piece titled "The 10 Worst Albums By 10 Brilliant 70's Bands."
I knew it was going to be garbage, but I took the bait and clicked anyway.
A quick scroll shows entries from Coven, Black Oak Arkansas, and Peter Criss. I made a mental note to look up the word "brilliant."
Also on the list is CCR for their admittedly terrible "Mardi Gras" and ELP for "Love Beach," a record that could have been as brilliant as Gershwin, but was doomed from the start by being called "Love Beach."
UFO's debut, The Doors' Jim-less "Full Circle," and Humble Pie's "Street Rats" also made the list, though again, "brilliant," was never a word I'd associate with Humble Pie, a band I love mainly because of how stupid they were. And I say that in the best possible way.
That leaves two records, both of which I think are far from terrible, and most defnitely not the worst from either artist.
"Alice Cooper Goes To Hell" was a big, bloated Bob Ezrin affair. This is true. The writer says, "The vigorous, villainous raunch of the Alice Cooper band is gone, in favour of family-friendly vaudevillian showtunes, weak funk and creaky MOR, with Bob Ezrin’s kitchen-sink production, piano, strings and choirs zeroing in on the most egregious excesses of the mid-70s mainstream."
He just described Alice Cooper's career.
For the record, I assume the "weak funk" track he is referring to is "You Gotta Dance," which is a blast, and is hardly a "funk" tune, though the drums do get a bit funky on the chorus. Or maybe the Santana-esque congas that open "Wish You Were Here" sound like funk to this guy.
"Showtunes?" There is one, a single showtune. "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows" is from a 1918 musical, "Oh Look" and was later sung by Judy Garland in "Ziegfield Girl" from 1941. Alice does a fine job. It's no better or worse than any other bit of bombast in Cooper's career. The "creaky-MOR" track must be "I Never Cry," a far cry from "Dead Babies," but a Top 10 hit, nonetheless.
"Goes To Hell" is Alice doing Alice, with a fine band and enough solid riffage to keep any fan but that writer happy. Plus, the title track is one of Cooper's all time greats.
The other entry is The Kinks' "A Soap Opera," which the writer calls "a banal, condescending yarn based on Ray’s TV screenplay about a rock megastar swapping lives with a suburbanite Mr Average called Norman." Dave Davies refers to it as "an exercise in Ray's disappearing up his own arse."
With the exception of "Muswell Hillbillies," The Kinks' RCA years are very uneven, made more difficult by the muddy production. But let's not forget, they all include songs by Ray Davies and there will always be a few gems that will be so brilliant, no one record is ever going to be terrible.
"A Soap Opera" is not only NOT their worst record, I'd argue that it's a lost classic, best taken whole. And any record with "A Face In The Crowd," a Ray Davies masterpiece, cannot be called "the worst." I'll take the clever theatrics of "A Soap Opera" over the reverb heavy, galumphy rockers on "Low Budget" anyday. But again, even "Low Budget" has its moments.
9 comments:
I will defend -- to my last dying breath -- the excellence of "Go To Hell".
No, it's not the "Alice Cooper Group". The ACG went out weakly with "Muscle of Love" and that was it.
GTH is brilliant from start to finish -- a rocking, melodic, stylistically all over the place, at times humorous but *never boring* concept album. Dick Wagner! Steve Hunter!! Tony Levin!!! It's a killer (no pun intended) backing band and great material.
If you liked, "Welcome To My Nightmare" -- there's absolutely no reason you shouldn't like this followup.
It's literally (not figuratively) in my all-time Top 10 albums. I've played it since 197-something and have never tired of it.
(You knew I was coming out to praise this, didn't you?)
(You knew I was coming out to praise this, didn't you?)
Yes, Shriner. But it's worth defending and you did a fine job of it.
Now I must listen to it loud!
I agree with Shriner's comment. I think the album is better than Nightmare.
Alice took self parody to Vegas with Nightmare. Here, he's doing the exact same album from someplace more cozy. Alice Cooper Goes To Pine Valley???
Who needs Vincent Price?
Move along.
No wonder Steven was so bent.
This show is from the bedroom with a lot more pizazz from the host.
He's good at parody!
I like Low Budget, Misfits, even State of Confusion! & my fave Kinks of all time & possible top 10 DID 4 me is School Boys. Critics be damned
I like Low Budget quite a bit, but really like Give the People What They Want even more. Soap Opera is fine, but I rarely go back to it.
I think you well know of my love of Soap Opera. If Have Another Drink was on Muswell Hillbillies it would be a beloved Kinks track. I feel this is Ray's best "concept album". Ray's best songs always champion the average man, and he captures that better than ever here. The brilliance of Soap Opera is that it's not about a Rock Star pretending to be normal Norman to do research for his songs ( a nice poke at Ray's own reputation), as the under-informed blogger claims. It's about a normal man, Norman, pretending to be a rock star who is pretending to be a normal man. By the end his wife confronts him to just accept who he is, and he does with the brilliant Face In The Crowd.
But then again, what do I know. I dig Ducks On The Wall, it's a great, fun rocker.
I was already a fan when "A Soap Opera" came out, and except for "You Can't Stop The Music", I didn't much like it. Hearing those songs for the first time in over 45 years was a trip. They came right back, and were a little better than I remembered, but not much. I think Dave was right.
CCR's "Mardi Gras" simply suffers the comparison to the albums where John Fogerty was running the show and writing all the songs.
Their previous records, where that was the case, were jam-packed with great tracks. On "Mardi Gras" Fogerty was putting the other band members in their place and saying if this is going to be a democracy all of a sudden, you two write some songs.
Among the results are a couple decent tracks, a cover song--which the band was always fond of (in this case, Gene Pitney's "Hello Mary Lou") and, a few Fogerty songs I've always liked; "Looking For A Reason," "Someday Never Comes," and "Sweet Hitch-Hiker."
The latter was a live staple that showed up on no less than THREE officially released CCR live albums; Live In Europe, Live Creedence, Live In Germany, and on the greatest hits compilations More Creedence Gold, Chronicle Vol. 1 and others, AND was a #6 hit on Billboard.
IF "Mardi Gras" was the debut album of any other band, it would have been considered a solid start, a good album, and would almost certainly have many champions.
I think it makes these "worst album ever" lists because the compilers simply look up other lists of the worst albums--rather than actually listening to the records in their entirety.
STINKY: "I think it makes these "worst album ever" lists because the compilers simply look up other lists of the worst albums--rather than actually listening to the records in their entirety."
I think it made this particular list because the writer is a moron. Anyone referring to Black Oak Arkansas as a "brilliant 70's band" cannot be taken seriously. As for me, I do love the three Fogerty tracks you mentioned, but they can't save the rest of "Mardi Gras."
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