Sunday, June 14, 2020
how could you sink solo?
are there good solo albums?!
or even if "good", are there necessary solo albums?
I mean here specifically the solo album as extracurricular excursion for purposes of self-expression, from someone otherwise productively embedded in a group context that is still coming up with the goods
as opposed to the solo album as what gets made during the solo career of someone who was once in a band, but has left it to go their own way, or the band split up altogether
although those kind of post-primary-band careers have a checkered history in themselves
but still Scott Walker.... John Lennon.... Gene Clark.... Lou Reed, John Cale, Nico...
Who else? Tom Verlaine had some moments, after Television... Julian Cope, eventually, did (Peggy)... some swear by Robert Plant's post-Zep efforts, but life's too short to check... Even Ozzy had "Crazy Train"...
But back to the main theme - not the solo album as "I wish to continue in this industry, I am not ready to retire yet, I have a mortage to pay off after all" ... but the solo album as "I fancy having a little me-time outside the group, prove I am not dependent on the others"..
And that is a landfill factory, as a phenomenon
Thunderfingers Entwhistle did about seven outside-Who albums
A catalogue of the inessential, this type of indulge-myself / prove-myself solo emission
Either they are a misconceived, unachieved attempt to do something very unlike the original band
Or they remind you of the original band but in a diminished, pale-shadow form - e.g the Robert Gorl and Gabi Delgado jobs, Martin Rev's solo emissions
Although Alan Vega had a couple of good and un-Suicidal turns in the early 80s before going all Billy Idol
But let's not muddy the picture
I can think of so very few that are patch on the primary group's output
This is the best of all the Stone-alone jobs by an order of a billion
perhaps the best of them is not a solo album, but a duo album - half the group releasing its thwarted pop potential
whereas Jerry Harrison's, oh dear
and even Byrne's, while having moments, are lesser affairs
this is one of the moments
A variant in the annals of expensive wastefulness is a band splitting into two halves to indulge their self-expressive needs / cock a snook at the other two
Duran Duran >>> Arcadia + The Power Station
Not quite the same but equally unproductive
Soft Cell >>>> Marc and the Mambas + Dave Ball In Strict Tempo
I suppose that's a bit like the DAF split into lesser tangents
Although the Gorl is a bit of an earworm... there's probably not a month that's gone by since it came out, that I haven't at least once spontaneously erupted into the chorus
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10 comments:
Oh yeah, tom tom club debut is wonderful. Was listening to keith richards' crosseyed heart the other night, real casual, warm and soulful. So have to disagree on that score. Always find wyman kinda tacky, the uncool stone.
Je Suis un Rock Star belongs to that micro-genre of the very late-70s/very early 80s - new wave pop based around Ian Dury imitations - Jona Lewie, BA Robertson,
Chris Difford on Cool For Cats. Admittedly, none went so far as to try and ape Dury's Dickensian charisma. Jona Lewie took the speak-singing delivery but adapted it to a kind of everyman-ish humility (peaking with the "ordinary Tommy " persona on Stop The Cavalry). Difford and Squeeze always retained their own identity which was assuredly working-class, but devoid of Dury-esque bohemianism. As for BA Robertson - totally baffling? A pop star and a TV personality, for a time, and equally useless at both, and why was a Scotsman rapping in a cockney accent, anyway?
With Je Suis un Rock Star, though, it really does feel like Bill noted what Ian Dury was doing and thought " I might have a crack at that " and such was the charmless result. If it really is the best solo venture by one of the Stones than that says it all, really.
I must be the only one that prefers the glossy 80s pop of St.Julian. Not into the pseudo-funk psych style Julian started to produce on Peggy Suicide. I've been listening a bit to The Cars lately and am intending to check out Ric Ocasek's solo gear-- now with this article in mind.
i did a whole post on BA Robertson once!
https://hardlybaked.blogspot.com/2013/09/robertson-smarmy-comedian-popster-with.html
yeah the giveaway is the Scotsman doing Mockney
Would 'Cool For Cats' count as a kind of rap-before-rap?
Stevie Nicks perhaps
"Would 'Cool For Cats' count as a kind of rap-before-rap?"
It's more like Cockney Dylan, surely? The same deep roots in the blues, Langston Hughes, etc, but via a different chain of influences.
It's the same with Mark Knopfler, whose talk-singing vocal style is pure English Dylan.
And what do you know: Wikipedia tells me that Squeeze and Dire Straits actually came up in the same scene in Deptford in the mid-70s.
Wikipedia also points out the Velvet Underground influence on squeeze, including their name and the fact that John Cale produced their first album.
Lou Reed is clearly another main channel for the Dylan influence, for Squeeze and Knopfler both.
Although it is hard to imagine anything less like the VU than the cheery geezer personas that Squeeze became famous for!
Bryan Ferry's Roxy-era solo work falls into the "pale shadow" category I guess, but some of it is pretty good. His cover of 'A Hard Rain' is close to great Roxy, IMO, with most of the band playing on it. Although not Eno, of course
Rod Stewart's early 70's solo albums were at exactly the same quality level as The Faces' albums, i.e. between 7/10 and 8/10.
Bob
Actually if I recall correctly, Bill actually wrote 'Je Suis' for Ian Dury - or offered it to him, but was turned down.
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