October 2009 Archives

Researching potential candidates for my award-winning* occasional series "How Bad Could It Be?: One Man's Journey Through the Least Loved Albums of All-Time" is proving a most daunting task. For starters, few albums are universally unloved, and those that are were recorded by Kevin Federline. What I'm looking for here is an overall critical consensus: the runts of the litter, the bizarre experiments (possibly substance-related), the blatant contractual obligation records.

My picks also need to be by artists who were supposed to know better. Nobody affiliated with the recording of Paris Hilton's album, from the cigar-chomping mogul to the slicked-back A&R middleman to the calculating debutante herself, was laboring under the impression that they were involved in anything other than pure commerce. The fact that their investment failed to pay off can be their only complaint, but their businesslike attitude and blissful lack of self-awareness means that they were already on to the next synergistic, multiplatform venture. That's not what this is about.

Of course, the other problem is that I'm listening to a lot of very bad albums. But I'm willing to root around in the detritus of our most esteemed artists' floppery, and I'm also on the lookout for suggestions. If you suspect an album fits my description, drop me a line in the comments, and I'll investigate duly.

That said, my searching has led me to a most pleasant surprise: George Harrison's 1968 album Wonderwall Music. It certainly wasn't a hit, and what little attention its received has been mixed. As the soundtrack to an obscure British film and a busman's holiday for Harrison, though, it doesn't really match my criteria for rock mega-flopdom. It is however, pretty delightful.

Half the tracks were recorded in Harrison's beloved India, and they're far more traditional in nature than his Indian-inspired Beatles contributions. The rest of the songs feature London-based musicians, including stalwart companions Eric Clapton and Ringo Starr (and a banjo contribution from my second-favorite Monkee, Peter Tork). By and large, the pop tracks are charming little miniatures, and they offer a nice object lesson for the Quiet Beatle's contributions to the group. There are lots of examples of his guitar stylings, particularly on the Revolver-ish "Ski-Ing," with its phased guitars panning back and forth ever-so-trippily, and "Party Seacombe," which could practically be a White Album outtake.

Wonderwall Music is a difficult album to get a hold of, but if you should happen across one, you could do worse... and in George Harrison's case, a lot worse. Watch this space for more on that.

(*I consider a "good job" from my wife to be an award.)

Party Seacombe.mp3

One man's journey through the most notoriously unloved records in rock history continues. In this edition, we'll take a look at a rock icon's foray into the murky politics of 1972. It's by a former Beatle -- how bad could it be?

Since his death in 1980, John Lennon's legend has solidified into something beyond a mere rock star. To many, he has become a symbol of the peace movement, occasionally even referenced in the same breath as Martin Luther King and Gandhi. But truth be told, Lennon's "peace period" was relatively short-lived. It started strongly enough with the release of "Give Peace a Chance," the chorus of which is as ubiquitous among collegiate protesters as "Hey Hey Ho Ho, the thing to which I am opposed has got to go." (The verses, with their references to mastication and Tommy Smothers, have worn rather less well.) Other singles followed in a similar sloganeering vein, including "Power to the People," "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)," but by 1972 Lennon's tone had taken a far more confrontational tone.

Surrounding himself with self-styled radicals as Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, Lennon and Yoko Ono began writing angrier indictments of The System and The Man. Meanwhile, his move to New York City meant a move away from his cozy inner musical circle of Klaus Voorman, Ringo Starr and Eric Clapton and into the arms of Elephant's Memory, a generic bar band that must have had access to good dope. The end product of this confluence of events was the double album Some Time in New York City, and it was immediately deemed a disaster.

The record-buying public, weary after a day of actually working for The System, was less than eager to cough up $10.98 to be called a sexist, genocidal swine. And rock critics, clearly subservient lickspittles to The Man, were vicious in their dismissal. "Tuneless agitprop," said Rolling Stone's Robert Christgau, while Sexist Genocidal Swine Quarterly described it as "less than fair."

The album has been largely written out of Lennon's hagiography. While the single (and it pains me to type this) "Woman Is the Nigger of the World" appeared on his 1975 greatest hits Shaved Fish, it has been mercifully expunged from later compilations. But hey, things have changed a lot since 1972. Back then we were teetering on the brink of economic disaster while trapped in an unwinnable quagmire of a war. How does John and Yoko's Some Time in New York City sound today?

Actually, it may have gotten even worse.

Lennon and Ono's lyrics sound every bit as strident and humorless as they ever did, and the music supporting them is as half-assed as anything any '70s rocker ever barfed up. The production from Phil Spector is anemic, as he is clearly lost without his Wall of Sound and had not yet mastered the art of recording at gunpoint. And that's just on the first album. The second album consists of some live jams, some with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, and like all jam sessions, they're only fun for the people making them.

All this without mentioning Yoko Ono's voice. There's been quite a bit of revisionist history surrounding Ono and her avant-garde stylings, but combine them with Lennon's meat and potatoes rock 'n' roll and you end up with a mess, like John Zorn spraying free jazz sax all over a Sha Na Na album.

As over the top as it sometimes seems, the legend of John Lennon has a value, although it's important to remember that a very flawed and complex person lived inside that myth. Maybe having an album like this humanizes him a bit, but it's probably better to know about it than to actually listen to it.

Sisters, O Sisters.mp3

Not too long ago, I heard "Don't You Forget about Me" on the oldies station.

This won't do.

I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong. My issue here is not that a song that was popular when I was in high school is now being called an "oldie," thereby making me an "oldie." I'm aware of my aging, and I'm pretty comfortable with it, as these things go. My issue is that a big part of our musical history is disappearing, and it's going to happen one "Safety Dance" at a time.

The Oldies format has been around since the 1970s, rising to prominence during the first wave of '50s nostalgia. Its stayed relatively consistent through the 1980s and the advent of Classic Rock format. Even as more 1960s songs began to creep their way in to Oldies playlists, there was still based on a fairly simply dichotomy at work: Songs that were originally played on AM radio and purchased on 45 were "oldies," while songs that were purchased on LP and played on FM radio were "classic rock." The Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction"? An Oldie. "Fool to Cry"? Classic Rock. The Beatles, as you might expect, were more ambidextrous, although pre-1966 Beatles were more or less strictly Oldies. The system worked. Young people were hearing "Runaround Sue" and were surely the better for it.

But over time, this useful dichotomy has collapsed upon itself. Nowadays, the Oldies station plays mostly songs from the 1970s, and more specifically the kind of Seals and Crofts Mellow Gold that made the rock 'n' roll traditionalists vomit with rage. Case in point: A few weeks back I was going back and forth between our Oldies and Classic Rock stations. Both were playing "Peaceful Easy Feeling" by the Eagles. I considered driving my car over the median strip and into oncoming traffic to make it stop.

Unlike Classic Rock, which I recall was originally trying to forge a link between early '70s FM, Zeppelinist dogma and more analogous contemporary sounds, oldies radio was a preservationist format. Just because they played rockabilly didn't open the door for the Stray Cats. But now the Stray Cats are the only vaguely '50s-ish sounds you'll hear on the Oldies station. And while we were too often exposed to the irritations of Frankie Valli's shrieking back then, we're now exposed to his even more contemptible '70s output, including the wall-punchingly hideous "Grease Is the Word."

Nostalgia is already a great equalizer. Oldies radio created the impression that CCR = Buddy Holly = the Archies, which was odd enough. Now we're led to believe that CCR = Donna Summer = Huey Lewis and the News, and that's just plain frightening.

It's a problem that's only been compounded by the consolidation of radio by the Clear Channel/Cumulus stranglehold. No one's going to break with existing formats for a demographic as undesirable as the 50 and up group. And as a result, the few kids that actually scan the radio dial will only know of Chuck Berry as the "My Ding-a-Ling" guy, and they won't know about Sam Cooke at all. And nothing good can come of that.

It's Got the Whole World Shakin'.mp3