1970-1979 WTF - The Hard 'n' Heavy 'n' Loud + Krautrock, Arty, Noisy, Weird, Funky, Punky Shit - Albums Poll! - VOTING THREAD! Closes Mar 8th 11.59 PM UK Time - All ILXORS/LURKERS WELCOME

All I could think of was Klinger from M.A.S.H. reviewing it

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51M-3eSRhaL._AA300_.jpg

Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation (Sire, 1977)
Possibly the only album from the core CBGB's scene that's underrated. It didn't make either ILM 70s polls, nor Pitchfork's, Rolling Stone, was only 663 among RYM's 70's albums. It did fare better on Acclaimed music at 170 of 70's, 540 overall. But it's one of my top 100 all-time favorite albums. In the Please Kill Me oral history, many claimed Television was at their best before Richard Hell left. There is something to be said for creative tension, but usually I think it was for the best, as Marquee Moon is perfect to my ears. It made sense when Hell went on to join the sloppy Heartbreakers. It seemed ironic to me that when Hell formed the Voidoids with two guitarists - Robert Quine and Ivan Julian, Blank Generation ended up sounding like a kind of companion album to Television's. Obviously Quine's brilliant style, while as virtuosic as Verlaine, was also more angular and spastic, a little more influence from Beefheart's Magic Band. And while Hell's original poetic inspirations and aspirations were similar to Verlaine's, his lyrics are much more witty and crass, his vocal delivery a hundred times more unhinged. It's enough to make one wonder what it would have been like if Hell stayed in Television, but to hear old songs like "Love Comes In Spurts" and "Blank Generation," (which, from what I heard from old Television demos and bootlegs still needed some work) it's enough to hear them finally hatched by Hell and the Voidoids in their final, perfect incarnations. It blows my mind that some thought Blank Generation was a disappointment at the time. Possibly because those in the scene were jaded after hearing many of the songs for years, thinking the album was a year or two late to arrive, with Hell and the band already starting to fall apart due to the usual drug-related b.s. But from where I stand I can't imagine changing anything that could improve it.

yeah thats a great album. I bought the cd years ago (late 90s?) and about 3 months after that news came out of a remastered and expanded version that was to be released.

RYM Top Punk Albums of the 1970s

So what happened? There's been no expanded version released since the 1990 issue as far as I know.

http://www.vinylsurrender.com/Graphics/AlbumCovers2/Sparks%20-%20Kimono%20My%20House.jpg

Sparks - Kimono My House (1974)
I can't say enough great things about this album. One of my ever-evolving-top-3 of the 70s for sure. Very glammy, seemingly all over the place, but definitely rocking even though it devolves into simply drums and synthesizers multiple times. I'm really that much of Sparks guy (and there are certainly many of them on ILM...those Sparks threads can be intimidating) because I couldn't really get into any Sparks albums after this one, but it doesn't really matter because I'm not sure they would have improved upon this one anyway.

http://youtu.be/QAzESJ62irI

http://youtu.be/1UbkDzp5LuY

Oh yeah, and the previous Sparks album A Woofer in Tweeter's Clothing is fucking incredible too. Love these two records.

http://youtu.be/dnnk4sJ-JnA

http://youtu.be/tnqzRyOLwM4

So what happened? There's been no expanded version released since the 1990 issue as far as I know.

the cd I bought was an american import in Tower.So I guess whatever came out after was a proper UK release

Cope's mention of Chrome's unreleased Ultra Soundtrack, originally commissioned for a live San Francisco porn show sounds interesting. Anyone have it?

― Fastnbulbous, Monday, February 25, 2013 12:44 PM (3 hours ago)

part if not all of this became alien soundtracks iirc

yeah 2000 it came out. I guess it was remastered rather than expanded
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blank-Generation-Richard-Hell-Voidoids/dp/B000005JB1/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361827958&sr=8-1

Which reminds me i need to pick up the marquee moon with extra tracks. I kept waiting for it to come down to a fiver in Fopp as I bought the old cd twice (only cd i ever had that snapped had to replace it)

That Richard Hell album rules.

Better than that Simple Minds shit you usually listen to Turrican! No worries of richard hell recording a song like belfast child ;)

What's 'Belfast Child'? I don't know what you're talking about! :P

Simple Minds split up in 1983 and then another band formed in their place, also called Simple Minds, who were fucking crap. I think you're confusing one band with the other :P

no the original band were still alive and kicking after that. fucking hate them with a passion like in the same way tad says new jersey folk hate bon jovi

or at least he says he hates them.

Great stuff on Richard Hell Fastnbulbous. That album was def making my ballot but I might give it another blast this week and consider moving it up. I agree that it's underrated compared to the rest of the scene it sprang from.

Not sure the Modern lovers debut needs much campaigning, sure it'll place high regardless. It's not consistently heavy or weird or anything, through 'She Cracked' rocks pretty hard.

I'll pick something more under represented and make a case for that once I get my ballot together.

So Richard Hell is underrated now? back when I first heard of it (early 90s) it seemed like Blank Generation was up in the top tier of punk debuts, just behind the Clash, Ramones and Television (& definitely cooler than the Pistols.) Maybe Hell's stock was up then because of Dim Stars?

Underrated in general or underrated just on ILM?

or maybe he wasn't as rated as highly outside of the us? Maybe marcello, mike t-diva or grouty can answer that

(from a before 1990 perspective)

It's maybe just a UK thing. Growing up I never heard off 'Blank Generation' or saw it featured in best of lists. I suppose he gets credit now here for being the first punk (though I disagree). That was certainly the argument made in that history of rock thing the BBC aired a few years back. I bought the album years ago just because I thought the cover looked cool and I liked the titles of the songs. None of my friends has heard of or were familiar with him as I remember.

http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_writers.htm , http://www.rocklistmusic.co.uk/nme_readers.htm nothing in top 100s from 85 or 93 or the readers top 100

I certainly knew of him in the 90s so maybe his UK rep was non-existent until the 90s/00s reissues?

Lets face it UK music press preferred UK punk bands mostly

I suppose he gets credit now here for being the first punk (though I disagree).

would like to understand the basis of this disagreement tbh

I suppose it's not a flat out disagree, he was certainly a big influence musically and definitely in terms of image. I just think its a stretch to consider any one individual to be the first.

I mean I can see just as much influence in someone like Klaus Dinger of Neu!

well yeah, the concept of a "first punk" is stupid but hell was certainly a forebearer of what became an archetype, from style to attitude to music. always felt bad reading bangs' account of him opening for the clash in '77, getting spit on by dudes who were prolly listening to mud or whatever while he was busy inventing their steez for them back in '74.

at one point I had posted on ILM a zip file with the evolution of "love comes in spurts" with versions by neon boys, television, heartbreakers, and the voidoids. should see if I can dig that up.

that would be cool

Chrome is v good, Idk which one I like more, Alien Soundtracks or Half Machine Lip Moves

― harvester of lols (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, February 24, 2013 7:10 PM (2 days ago)

well the alien soundtracks vs half machine lip moves debate has raged inside my fervid mind for many a moon, mainly in response to the general critical/lolpopular tendency to view HMLM as the jewel of the chrome discog crown as well as its wellworn sacred totem status within the pvd noise/funk/robot scene. but for longer than I care to admit (ok, 25 years, jeezus) I've sided w/ cope when he writes, "If anyone asks you about Chrome, tell 'em ALIEN SOUNDTRACKS nailed it, Dunne'n'Dusted, end of story."

first heard of chrome in '87 when a sound choice reviewer likened my band to them, the description of "a shortwave radio that turned on its listener" was intriguing, and it was pretty cool to have a group I'd never even heard of name-checked as comparison, but I could for love nor money in the pre-interwebs age find any print or vinyl evidence that this band existed at all. a couple years later touch & go did me the solid of reissuing AS + HMLM and I dug in. alien soundtracks clicked immediately and was subsequently lysergically embedded in my endorphin-releasing data banks, while half machine lip moves left me a bit cold, decidedly *not* a bad album but really failed to connect in the same way as its soulswallowing predecessor.

as time went on their rep + notoriety increased and it baffled me why HMLM was more well-regarded, I chalked it up to HMLM being the underground stepping stone, the release that built their rep, the way sister was a major breakthrough for SY while evol contained the real grape that would not be grokked for decades. but I've had to look elsewhere for answers, since it seems that AS *still* plays second fiddle to HMLM even in these hallowed halls, and tho I swore to focus on new listening for this here poll I drug this unholy pair out of mothballs in search of the truth. and it started me thinking about why I prefer a particular album over another, and maybe even why my ballot was skewing in a particular direction.

I do believe in my heart of hearts that there's a certain excitement generated when a band first gets together, and the results of two or more unstoppable forces coming to terms w/ their coexistence and exploring the possibilities contained therein generates incomparable soulsustaining electricity, hearing a band spread its wings and make for the sun for the first time is magic. inevitably folks settle into their routines, and those routines can certainly yield results, I mean the pyramids weren't built by thrillseeking layabouts, and I know the ecstasies of infatuation eventually give way to the reliable austerity of love's duties, but we're talking about the decadent abstractions of music here so gimme the sweet spazzy rush of unencumbered newness over the stately and poised consistency of refined masterworks. it's prolly why I dig paranoid over vol 4, rank sad wings of destiny over british steel, and prefer severe exposure to law of ruins.

AS is chrome's 2nd album by name, but it's the drive-in at the end of the universe where damon edge's paranoid android first met helios creed's always-peaking motormouth who needed two heads just to keep up with ALL THIS STUFF I GOTTA LAY ON YOU LIKE RIGHT NOW MAN except instead of mouths he had a guitar and 37 phase pedals set to stun. the sound on AS is total shitcrap, like they recorded it in yr mom's den while she was under her hooded hair dryer, and it brays and hollers as a result, untamed frequencies jumping out all over the place and even approaching physically unpleasant at times (hello 5:15 of "pygmies in zee dark").

HMLM, while still a heady trip down dark corridors of blurp, is a more refined affair, two years later the band has better control of their sound and instincts, so they plumb deeper but don't wander far afield. rather than assault the listener with a HEY LOOK AT THIS it hangs back and lets *you* come to *it* which I guess makes for a better experience overall for some folks, but my personal preference now and forever is the raw n slobbering gargantua of AS. it drops more hooks than a tripping fisherman to boot.

if you're gonna brave these waters on spotify I recommend searching for the combo half machine lip moves / alien soundtracks version from 1990, it's listed under "compilations" on the chrome page, sounds better than the other versions available there.

dont see a compilations part or the actual 2 in 1 you speak of

the HMLM is however paired with Read Only Memory

US/UK spotify have different stuff

The essence of Alien Soundtracks, brilliant!

Lol at people asking why I thought Hell was underrated when I explicitly spelled it out with hard data!

It didn't make either ILM 70s polls, nor Pitchfork's, nor Rolling Stone, and was only 663 among RYM's 70's albums. It did fare better on Acclaimed music at 170 of 70's, 540 overall.

Hell may have done the ripped shirts all the way back in Neon Boys days, and the punk 'tude, so certainly he's one of the first archetypes.

I think that dbl CD release was the T&G one, the rockville CDs were good too if you can find em

yeah hell was rocking the ripped tees-safety pins-spiked hair combo early on

all this talk about Chrome is reminding me of the Helios Creed vs Keiji Haino poll idea I toyed with a few months back

What do you think of the 1st album (before Helios Creed joined)

its alright-ish, I didn't pay a ton of close attention

Chrome is cool but I find myself coming back more to Creed's solo stuff

really?

That sounds like something Hellhouse would say. I miss him on this thread.

George why exactly do you prefer Helios Creed solo to Chrome?

Crazy Psychedelia (Helios Creed, Butthole Surfers and...?)

George please do that best Helios Creed albums poll

I thought it was conventional wisdom that the uk punks got it all from hell, style-wise at least. Love blank generation regardless. In other news I am definitely one of those scary sparks nuts. Love kimono but couldn't imagine it ending there. If I'd voted in the 80s poll I would have given some points to whomp that sucker for god's sake. Every 8 weeks or so I have to just get DRONK and listen to SPARKS all night

(this is one of those nights)

So bummed that Budgie's Squawk and Frumpy's '2' aren't in the nom list ...

Never liked the Frumpy albums I heard years back (or Jane)

Or Hairy Chapter tbh. They all maybe had a few OK tracks but the albums were generally meh imo. Of course its always possible if I heard them again I could change my mind.