Introduction

JUKEBOX FOR A BRAIN

Records In Retrospect

by IAN ROBERTS

 

 

                        (A friend sent me this photograph from a recent Leicester Mercury article

                        looking back over the history of the Central Lending Library's music section

                        and - lo and behold - there, on the left, is yours truly, aged about 21, engrossed

                        in the racks of vinyl, immortalised in a photograph from a 1973 issue of the paper.

                        I have no recollection at all of the picture being taken.)

 

               The Underrated Albums Series

                             Introduction

 

Whilst it may be true to say to that, by and large, many artists seem to hit their commercial and creative peaks more or less simultaneously, it does not always follow that all of their best work is amongst their most successful and well-known. Conversely, it is often the case that quite substandard fare does disproportionately well merely by virtue of riding the wave created by a previous triumph.

It can also be a matter of being in the right place at the right time, of course. Popular music is inextricably tied to the vagaries of fashion and there are a plethora of acts who, over the changing times, have clung famously and profitably to the coat-tails of  genres such as Rock & Roll, Mersey Beat, Mod, Folk Rock, Psychedelia, Prog Rock, Glam Rock, Disco, Punk, New Wave, New Romantic, Indy, Rap, Rave, Britpop and so on. Indeed, it is only natural for performers to strive for success by trying to tap into the zeitgeist of the day. The best artists even help to create the zeitgeist.

From early 1963 through 1970, The Beatles pretty much were the zeitgeist and the general standard of their eleven albums (discounting soundtracks and compilations) is so uniquely high that it is virtually impossible to identify ones which could be deemed either overrated or underrated. One could suggest that Beatles For Sale (1964) was their least strong record and a backward step in that it returned to the format of their first two collections by including half a dozen cover versions, therefore failing to build on the all-original brilliance of A Hard Day’s Night earlier that same year. One would, however, have to qualify this judgement by recognising that it was a holding operation dashed off during the breathlessly dizzy heights of Beatlemania when the band were caught up on the mad carousel of jet travel, concerts, TV studios, film sets and press interviews.

Perhaps Beatles For Sale is overrated in terms of its enormous success and it may only touch on greatness occasionally with songs like ‘Eight Days A Week’, ‘I’m A Loser’ and ‘I’ll Follow The Sun’, but by any rule of thumb, it’s still an excellent album. Likewise, the poorly sequenced hotchpotch that is Let It Be (1970), still featured a core of truly great songs (‘Let It Be’; ‘Across The Universe’; ‘The Long And Winding Road’) as well as other very strong material.

The ‘test of time’ is a useful tool in helping us decide whether certain albums have been relatively overlooked or aren’t really all they’re cracked up to be. Occasionally, critics have, for instance, suggested that Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club (1967) tends to be overrated due to its being so much ‘of its time’.  As I point out above though, this idea misses the fact that Sgt. Pepper defined rather than was of its time. In any case, those critics were usually only downgrading the album in relation to other candidates for the titles of Best Beatles Album or Best Album Of All Time. All a bit academic really – especially if you consider the latest major poll, which appeared in Rolling Stone magazine (May, 2012) which places Sgt Pepper at No. 1, Revolver (1966) at No. 3, Rubber Soul (1965) at No. 5, and ‘The White Album’ (1968) at No. 10, not to mention Abbey Road (1969) at No. 14, in their list of the 500 Best Albums Ever…

No act before or since has approached the general level of excellence and innovation maintained by The Beatles. Quite simply, they put art on the chart. Their prolific and protean recording career lasted less than seven years, but fifty years since it began, it still towers over the entire history of popular music.

The only other recording careers I can think of that maintained a high level of consistency from beginning to end are even shorter than that of The Beatles: The Jimi Hendrix Experience (3 studio albums in 2 years); Nick Drake (3 in 2 1/2 years) and The Smiths (4 in 4 years). Although they were all very creative and influential, none of these acts achieved anywhere near the chart or sales success of The Beatles, of course; nor would they – even if Hendrix and Drake had extended their tragically brief lives, or The Smiths not split up – have been at all likely to have matched the extraordinary cultural impact of The Beatles.

One might, at this point, hazard Nick Drake himself as a candidate for the parade of ‘Underrated Albums’ which will eventually follow. After all, his work enjoyed little or no critical or commercial success in his lifetime and he has remained all but unknown to the general pop music public ever since. But in the forty years since his death, not one of his albums has ever been deleted and, along with occasional compilations, they tick over steadily sales-wise, all the time accumulating critical prestige.    

So Drake – a wonderful acoustic guitarist, singer and songwriter - although still something of a cult act, falls beyond my remit here because all three of his albums are highly regarded.

History, sooner or later, sometimes catches up on overlooked classics. Let us look briefly at three albums released during 1967 and ’68, which like Drake’s work might seem like the sort of titles to be found in a list of underrated albums: The Velvet Underground & Nico;  S. F. Sorrow by The Pretty Things and Odessey & Oracle by The Zombies.

None of these great albums have ever charted in the UK or US and yet neither do any of them appear in my list. This is because they have all benefited from the accretions of critical reappraisal over time. The eponymous Velvet Underground debut is one of the most powerful and influential records ever made, a twisted art rock masterpiece depicting the dark underbelly of the sunny ‘60s. Half of the band are still alive, including Lou Reed and John Cale, who both continue to pursue significant solo careers. The album, with its Andy Warhol banana artwork, has also become one of the most identifiable record covers of its era.

The main members of The Pretty Things and The Zombies are, like those of The Velvets, alive and well. Both bands have in recent years performed what have become their best known albums in their entirety live. The delirious rock opera, S. F. Sorrow, which portrays the life and death of a humble foot-soldier, and the gentler, more pastoral psychedelia of Odessey & Oracle (as melodic a set of songs you’ll find anywhere outside of The Beatles) have both aged well and are now routinely cited as being amongst the best records of their time. No place for them here then, beyond this point.

No place either, for Spirit Of Eden (1988), a career-sabotaging record by ex-New Romantics Talk Talk, an album of beautiful ambient, avant-garde rock and jazz which seemed to come out of nowhere and go nowhere – until that is, it had become, by the  21^st century, the band’s most admired work and regarded as one the era’s most original records.

It is not my intention with this project to unearth utter obscurities, but rather to focus on albums by often very well known artists that have somehow been forgotten or overshadowed by better known, more highly rated or best-selling work. None of the records here were massive sellers although some were quite successful. All of them have tended to be overlooked by critics and have yet to acquire a retrospective reputation. Hopefully these reviews may help to change that. 

Finally, I should point out that the numbers attached to each of these Underrated Albums merely refers to the sequence in which I write them - and in no way is meant to suggest an order of quality.
 

 

 

        This shot, taken in our lounge around the time I was writing

           JFAB # 8 - Caravanserai by Santana (see bottom centre), only

                  portrays about half of my ever-growing music collection, I'm afraid.

 

C. IGR 2013