Not sure which publication this was in - probably International Times - but this could be the start of a sporadic series: reviews in which critics don't perceive the significance of something at the time of its release.
Interesting, though, that the one track Farren digs and praises is "We Will Fall" - the track that most Stooges fans find tedious and interminable.
Contradicting his own point, it also the one with the least "live" energy.
But he's right - "We Will Fall" is a great track, precisely for its droning narcotic lassitude - the absence of kinetic-ballistic energy. Attributing it all to John Cale strikes me as unfair, but it does indeed resemble The Marble Index relocated to Michigan.
Personally I never had any problem with its protractedness or inertia - always loved it. Plus it functions similarly as side-one ender to "Dirt" on Fun House.
It's an atmosphere to sink into. An ambience somewhere between an opium den and a temple. Sinister ceremonies, rituals of annulment. It could go on for ever.
"Ann", on the flipside, starts with a similar kind of limpid limpness - before erupting (erecting) with rampaging desire.
What's this "Dance of Romance"? Presumably an ironic title - courtship, wooing, seduction, cloaking the animal reality.
I could go for a 70 minute version honestly.
Yes, We Will Fall is a crucial element to the accidental masterpiece that is the Stooges' debut. But do we recognise it so because we discovered the Stooges after punk became a force? Innovation is scarce rewarded at the time.
ReplyDeleteBut thinking, is it that innovative? Not only can you point to my fellow mad Welshman John Cale, it has always reminded me of the Doors' longer experiments (that said, I am slightly sceptical that Ray Manzsarek and Robby Krieger would consider such a droning track without adding an allusion to Coltrane).
Yes it does sound Doorsy - like a lobotomized "The End" maybe.
DeleteI love The Doors.
Yes obviously you can't hear The Stooges after punk without it being encumbered with world-historical significance.
There are many examples of hindsight-hearing versus real-time response, like the A&R who said on hearing the Beatles, "guitar groups are on the way out".
Anonymous, c'est moi
DeleteAn alternative theme for your series: critics who understood new music more clearly because it had not yet been crusted over by the accumulated weight of History and Importance.
ReplyDeleteI love the first Stooges album, but I also love the first MC5 album, and I can see how contemporary critics could easily have valued the latter more highly.
Hindsight inevitably colours our judgments. We see the beginning of the story differently, because we know how it ends. Before Funhouse, before he became a rock icon, did Iggy deserve to be recognised as one of the greatest of the greats? Maybe not.
And another undercurrent here: critics who are inclined to undervalue new music because they are trying to do something similar themselves.
DeleteIsn't the only successful example of a critic becoming a popstar Neil Tennant? And that's very much a special case.
DeleteI was totally primed to love MC5 and New York Dolls - because of their significance - but when I heard the records, I was like, "is that it?".
DeleteWith the Stooges, it's in the grooves, the sonic events captured there. There were no surrounding circumstances like the White Panther Party, or the Mercer Theatre scene in NYC. They were happening in a void, so the recordings are capsules of potential - a future that in this case is actualized ultimately.
Neil Tennant probably the biggest success story among the critics who became musicians, but there are others. Patti Smith and Lenny Kaye were both published critics. Morrissey was a passionate amateur. Chrissie Hynde. Julian Cope, maybe?
DeleteYou pipped me to it there - loads of examples of rock writers who became rockers - aesthetically successfully certainly (David Thomas), sometimes commercially too e.g Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith.
DeleteMorrissey did some reviews for Record Mirror I think. I have them somewhere, not bad at all, although he broke the ethics of journalism by reviewing his best friend's group, Ludus.
Once I was going to do a piece about critics crossing to the other side of things as there was a spate of it - Morley with Infantjoy, Greg Tate with Burnt Sugar, there were several more at that time. But I never got it together.
Historically, there's been John Mendelsohn in another with Christopher Milk. Chris Roberts with Catwalk. Nick Kent tried it with a band whose name I can't summon from memory and before that had briefly rehearsed with a proto-Sex Pistols. Morley and Art of Noise kind of counts since he supplied vital elements like track titles and philosopho-framing.
If you want to run a series of "reviews in which critics don't perceive the significance of something at the time of its release", the original 1991 reviews of "Nevermind" should provide months of material.
ReplyDeleteDid Nevermind get underwhelmed reviews? I don't think so. Equally you can't blame critics for not foreseeing how social energy would converge this band, in a way that it didn't for Mudhoney or Tad.
DeleteEverett True in MM and Steve Lamacq (!) in the NME both raved about Nevermind.
DeleteRolling Stone was tepid, though: gave it 3/5: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/nevermind-251483/
As Anonymous says, though, a lot of its power came from the social energy around it. Now that energy has faded again, perhaps we are closer to understanding those initial reactions.
For me it's a solid 8.1 or 8.2 on the Pitchfork 1-10 scale, but I see Pitchfork doesn't agree: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/15854-nevermind-20th-anniversary-edition/
Anonymous is actually me - not sure why it didn't come up as my name those times.
DeleteAnd then there’s the obverse: initial rave reviews that are now seen as wild overvaluations. Be Here Now is probably the most notorious example, but what are the others?
ReplyDeleteProdigy, The Fat of the Land? Did anyone bother listening to it again once 1998 had started?
DeleteYes! You prompted me to go back and listen to it again, and it actually sounded pretty good, with the exception of the first track. But there was an idea out there that it represented the future of rock, which today seems grossly exaggerated… Not least because rock didn’t really have a future!
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