PINK FLOYD - ANIMALS @ 45

 

January 21st marks the 45th anniversary of the release of Pink Floyd’s tenth studio album, Animals. Inspired by the novel, Animal Farm by George Orwell, it’s an ambitious concept album which looks deeply into the brutality of capitalism through the class metaphor of the ruling “pigs”, their obedient and domineering servants, the “dogs”, and the subjugated masses, the “sheep”. While it is often overshadowed by albums like Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall, Animals is deserving of attention as one of the groups last great recording achievements.

The roots of the album begin back in 1974 with a couple of live jam songs, You've Got to Be Crazy and Raving and Drooling. These were originally intended to become part of Wish You Were Here (1975), but plans changed as that album took shape and they ended up getting shoved to the back burner until it was time to start working on Animals.

After Wish You Were Here was completed, their contract with their record label for unlimited studio time expired, so the group decided to invest in their own recording facilities. The band purchased a three story block of church halls at 35 Britania Row in Islington, north London, and converted the building into both recording studios and storage facilities for their gear. By April of 1976, the studio was ready to begin recording of the new album, which went on until December.

The two live jams from 1974 were resurrected and the lyrics were updated for the album’s concept. You've Got to Be Crazy morphed into Dogs and Raving and Drooling became Sheep. A new song, Pigs (Three Different Ones), filled out the core conceptual triptych and the whole thing was book-ended by a short song split into two parts for the intro and outro, Pigs on the Wing (Pts 1 & 2). With the exception of a co-writing credit for David Gilmour on Dogs, the entirety of the album was credited to Roger Waters, something which was a bit of a signpost for the split that was developing within the band as Waters began to feel he was carrying most of the creative burden.

As the album progresses, it becomes apparent that the prime narrator is a “dog”, representing a ruthless, predatory businessman, who is manipulated by the elite “pigs” to prey upon the “sheep” for their benefit. It sets up a perfect analogy to the dominant class structure in capitalistic societies with the wealthy ruling class over the adversarial middle class subjugating the subservient lower classes. Eventually, the “sheep” rebel and overthrow the “dogs”, but their ignorance only leads them to replace the dogs as oppressors, perpetuating the class system while the “pigs” remain unscathed. It’s a deeply cynical outlook which is only mildly lightened by the dog’s realization that “love” and caring for others is the only way to ease the suffering & loneliness of this seemingly hopeless cycle of social struggle.

Musically, the album came about at a time when the “punk” zeitgeist was starting to become prominent and there’s a certain rebellion against that on this album, though you can hear how it would eventually shift the group away from the sprawling double digit run-times of Animals into the more concise radio friendly songs that would appear on The Wall a couple of years later. In that sense, the album feels a bit braced against the tides with its indulgences, but the performances still hold up as masterful and impactful and there’s an engaging flow to the arrangements and the narrative that carry the listener along for the ride.

The cover for the album is worthy of a dramatization on its own as it became somewhat notorious for its comical, absurdist disruption. After rejecting a few concepts from design firm, Hipgnosis, one of which included the idea of a child bursting in on parents having animalistic sex, Roger Waters came up with the factory concept since, at the time, he lived near Clapham Common, and regularly drove past Battersea Power Station, which was by then approaching the end of its useful life. They concocted the concept of flying a massive 40’ inflated pig over the factory and contracted a firm to custom fabricate the beast. In anticipation of any potential problems with the giant balloon on the day of the shoot, they hired a marksman to be prepared should they lose control of it, but because they had to reschedule the shoot for the next day due to bad weather, they forgot to re-book the marksman. The pig was finally launched and, as feared, it broke free of its moorings and took off into British airspace, making it to Heathrow airport where it caused quite a stir with mass panic and cancelled flights as authorities tried to figure out what on earth was going on. It eventually landed in a farmer’s field in Kent where it continued to provoke outrage as the farmer complained of it startling his cows. The inflatable was eventually recovered and a third shooting day was booked, but the resulting shots didn’t quite cut it and they found they had better shots of the factory on its own. So the decision was made to simply “cut & paste” the pig into the picture, something which seems easy enough today, but was a bit more hands on then as there was no such thing as Photoshop and such effects literally meant cutting up a photograph and pasting it to another one.

After the album’s release, the band went on tour to support it and the onstage rapport between Waters and the audience ended up taking a contentious turn throughout the tour, a situation which ultimately resulted in Waters being inspired to write The Wall as a reaction to that situation. Despite this, the album was a hit and, along with their back catalogue, helped the band beat out ABBA for most weeks on the charts in 1977. Critics were somewhat uneven in their response, with NME raving about it being extreme, relentless & harrowing while Rolling Stone’s critic was unimpressed. It’s legacy, however, has born out the warnings it gave about the nature of capitalism. When we look at our civilization at present, the cynicism that is steeped throughout its grooves is more than warranted and its message is even more disturbingly on point. It’s an album that I have taken a long time to warm to, but researching it and giving it a proper deep listen again has certainly given me a new appreciation for its complexities and depth.

THE ROLLING STONES - BETWEEN THE BUTTONS @ 55

 

Released on January 20th, 1967, the UK edition of The Rolling Stones fifth British studio album, Between the Buttons, is celebrating 55 years on the shelves today. The US edition, featuring a slightly different song selection and order, was issued on February 11th. It’s an album that found The Stones in the middle of their most musically adventurous period, largely driven by the wanderlust of founding guitarist, Brian Jones.

This phase of the group’s career had begun with the previous album, 1966’s Aftermath, and was synchronous with the changes taking place among many of the pop groups of the time. Driven by trailblazers like The Beatles, The Byrds and The Beach Boys. They were all looking to expand their horizons and explore new musical territory, each challenging the others to push further with every new album.

By the time Between the Buttons went into production, Jones had almost entirely set aside his guitar, only using it on a couple of songs for the album. Instead, he was indulging in a variety of instruments including organ, accordion, recorder, vibraphone, piano, harmonica, dulcimer, kazoo, tuba, trombone & trumpet! Though the songwriting duties remained with Jagger and Richards, Jones’ sense of exploration drove the group into more challenging styles and arrangements, at least temporarily shifting the focus off of strictly blues based music and into more diverse avenues. This gives the LP a decidedly psychedelic sheen, as is reflected in the blurry album cover photo, which uses a primitive home-made camera filter constructed of black card, glass and Vaseline. It was shot at 5:30 AM after an all-night recording session by photographer Gered Mankowitz.

The first phase of recording began early in August of 1966 in LA while the band were on tour in the US. The group returned to the UK in September to continue work on the album with producer Andrew Oldham, who’d handled the job for the group up to this point. However, tensions would make this his last album with the band. Besides the variety of styles, the music was notably more complex, particularly with the rhythms. In addition to the core band members, most keyboard duties were split between session musicians Jack Nitzsche & Ian Stewart. Recording was done on 4 track systems, which necessitated a lot of bouncing in order to do overdubs, something the band found frustrating as the process inevitably meant sacrificing the quality of the sound each time mixes had to be bounded down to make way for more overdubs. Jagger griped that it all ended up sounding muddy to him and expressed a lot of displeasure with the sound quality of the end results.

The title of the album was something of a mix-up caused when Charlie Watts asked the producer what the title of the album would be. Oldham replied “between the buttons”, not as the title, but as a turn of phrase to say that it hadn’t been decided yet. Watts then went and created a six panel cartoon and poem with that phrase as the title for the graphic which ended up as the back cover for the album. From there, they decided to just let it stick as it was.

Upon its release, it was both a commercial and critical success and has since gone on to be considered one of the groups strongest albums. It showcased them at the peak of their most daring creativity. Jones was bringing a rainbow of sounds to the table and the end results were enough to push their contemporaries to go even further with their own music. For me, this is the prime era for the band, the pinnacle of their powers and the ultimate expression of their musical potential. After Jones’ departure and subsequent death, that sense of adventure seemed to disappear from the band as they returned to more traditional blues roots, something which would remain their status quo for the rest of their career. But there were still a couple of “out there” records to come with Flowers and Their Satanic Majesties Request before they’d pull back into their comfort zone.

DAVID BOWIE - LOW @ 45

 

January 14th marks the 45th anniversary of David Bowie’s 11th studio album, Low, which was released on this date in 1977. It marked the beginning of his “Berlin” period, an era of his work which would come to be considered the most challenging and ambitious of his career.

This phase didn’t actually begin with Low, however and didn’t start in Berlin, but rather in France where he and Iggy Pop had relocated with the intention to dry out. Bowie had spent the previous few years in LA, becoming a serious cocaine abuser and living the rock star lifestyle to the point that it nearly took him down. After becoming the emaciated “Thin White Duke”, complete with questionable politics, he recognized his trajectory was purely self-destructive and that he needed a major course correction. Pop was in the same boat with his heroine habit, so the two set about cleaning themselves up and working on Iggy’s first solo album, The Idiot, on which Bowie would co-write most of the songs and contribute significantly to the music. Tony Visconti came in to help with production and the stage was set for Bowie to start working on his own new album after The Idiot wrapped.

Some of the foundational work for Low started in 1976 when Bowie was working on the film, The Man Who Fell to Earth, for which he was initially planning to provide the score. That plan failed to come to fruition as director Nicholas Roeg didn’t like where he was going with the demo music and Bowie abandoned the idea completely. But the direction he was going was something he still wanted to explore, which is where Brian Eno comes into the picture as a collaborator for the new album. They’d both become enamored with the German “Krautrock” scene and bands like Tangerine Dream, NEU!, Kraftwerk and Harmonium, whom Eno had worked with. This influence became central in guiding the direction for Low as it lead them in the direction of experimentation with electronics and new compositional approaches which would become central in creating the sound for the album. One of the key ingredients, technology wise, was a bit of gear brought in by Tony Visconti, the Eventide H910 Harmonizer, which became a vital tool for achieving the album’s bizarre, electronic drum sound.

While most of the album was recorded in France before eventually moving to Berlin for final production, overdubs and mixing, the general mood was easy going. There were no schedules or deadlines looming over their heads, so the musicians could relax, try out unusual ideas and explore fresh approaches. That wasn’t immediately appealing to some, like guitarist Carlos Alomar, but even he eventually got onboard with the vibe and started to appreciate the creative freedom. But things in France were not all peachy as the skeleton crew staff at the studio were often neglectful of their guests and the cooks were bad enough to give the band food poisoning on at least one occasion. This made the move to Berlin something of a welcome change, one which would find Bowie rooted there for both Iggy’s next solo album, Lust for Life, and two more albums of his own, “Heroes” and Lodger. Collectively, that set of five albums by Pop and Bowie can be seen as the complete arc of the Berlin period. The album cover for Low, which was also a modified still from The Man Who Fell to Earth as was the Station to Station cover before it, was something of a visual pun as it showed Bowie in profile as he appeared in the film. The gag being that Bowie was being “Low profile” (insert rim-shot).

Once the album was completed and presented to RCA records, their executives were pretty much horrified by the results. After the massive success of Young Americans and Station to Station, the label had hopes for more in that vein and were not expecting the level of experimentation nor the emphasis on instrumental tracks that was integral to Low. They were so taken aback by it, they delayed releasing it for 3 months and, even when it did come out, refused to promote it. Bowie didn’t help as he wouldn’t tour to support the album and, instead, went on the road to support Iggy as his keyboard player. The miraculous thing about all this was that the album STILL managed to be a hit! It peaked at #2 in the UK charts and #11 in the US and remained on the charts for a considerable number of weeks.

Critically, the album split the press into a fragmentary array of those who didn’t understand it, those who thought it was an insult or a move of desperation or those who thought it was sheer genius. In terms of its legacy, it became a launchpad for virtually the entire post-punk scene as bands from Joy Division to Human League to Cabaret Voltaire read the signposts Bowie had planted in his music and duly set course for the strange waters he’d charted for them to explore. The confusion it inspired upon its release has since given way to the recognition that it represents a turning point, not just for Bowie as an artist, but for pop music as a cultural component as it set the standards for pushing boundaries and setting examples which others have used for their own ends.

NON - BLOOD & FLAME @ 35

 

Released on January 12th, 1987, the first proper full length studio album by NON, Blood & Flame, was published by Mute Records on this day, 35 years ago.

Though Boyd Rice had released several records prior to this, including his “black” album under his own name, a live NON LP, a collaboration with Fad Gadget’s Frank Tovey and a few EPs and oddball singles, Blood & Flame would become his definitive statement on "noise" music for the latter half of the 1980s. In the same way that Dick Dale became the “king” of surf guitar or Martin Deny the “king” of Exotica, Boyd claimed the noise crown on the basis of offering up one of the most uncompromising, yet listenable entries into this rapidly expanding genre. Whereas many stuck to piercing, shrill cacophony for pure shock value, NON offered up something that had far more nuance, harmonic complexity and textural variety. Culling his sounds from a selection of homemade devices, destroyed tapes or butchered vinyl, Rice was able to craft his music with a degree of artistry that was elusive for most other practitioners of the art.

I remember when the album was first released, it quickly became a staple of my library and a go-to whenever I needed something cleansing to grind away the detritus of life as it accumulated on my mind’s hull, like barnacles on a boat. Its abrasive brutality, tempered with a kind of fuzzy warmth, was always a perfect antidote. It was also inspirational in terms of my own creative endeavors as it was one of those rare records that triggers an epiphany insofar as revealing new worlds of possibilities and approaches. I still find myself drawn to this music, despite the often controversial nature of its author. Nobody else has ever managed to make “noise” sound so “nice” to my ears. For that, I can ignore the social-Darwinian indulgences of the man and focus solely on his “music”.

RAMONES - LEAVE HOME @ 45

 

January 10th marks the 45th anniversary of the release of the sophomore Ramones LP, Leave Home, which was issued on this day in 1977.

After the somewhat hurried and low budget production standards for their eponymous debut LP the previous year, Sire Records decided to loosen the purse strings and invest in some next level production for the boys for their follow up album. The result was a major step forward in sound quality, an improvement that was matched by advancements in songwriting which were underway at the same time. In fact, the band decided to record the songs in the same order they’d written them in order to showcase their progression. Most of the songs were written by the individual members at their homes. Johnny, lacking an amp, recorded his guitar demos directly to a cassette deck to bring into the studio to play for the guys. Production duties were shared by drummer Tommy & hired gun, Tony Bongiovi, who’d previously worked with disco queen, Gloria Gaynor as well as on some posthumous Jimi Hendrix releases. The sound quality they achieve certainly put them head & shoulders above their “punk” peers, and the accelerated tempos left the others even further in the dust. The group also sought to broaden their musical palettes slightly with a few more pop oriented songs.

One of the best songs from the album had to be scrapped for some years due to legal concerns over copyright infringement. Carbona Not Glue was originally included on the album as a follow up to Now I Wanna Sniff Some Glue from the first album, but concern over possible legal trouble because Carbona was a registered trade mark meant that subsequent pressings of the LP replaced the song in the US with Sheena Is a Punk Rocker and, in the UK, Babysitter was used. The song eventually returned to the album on reissues years later, though it was unofficially released as a single in 1991.

Once the album was released, all the investment and effort paid off with the critical response, but the album failed to generate the kind of buzz in sales they'd hoped. The Ramones were always cursed in some weird way with being masters of crafting these catchy, iconic anthems that only their hardcore fan base listened to, at least until most of the band were in their graves. It was a constant source of frustration that the band could put out songs like Gimme Gimme Shock Treatment & I Remember You, songs that screamed for radio airplay, and then have the masses simply ignore it all. Yet here we are today and people think these songs were always ubiquitous hit singles when nothing could be further from the truth.

Albums like Leave Home remain essential to the legacy of the Ramones, however. You can’t put it on without feeling yourself vibrate with energy as the songs rip out of the speakers. But it will always be a shame that this music wasn’t embraced right out of the gate so that the band could have enjoyed the success they were so desperate to achieve.

THE MONKEES - MORE OF THE MONKEES @ 55

 

Released on January 9th, 1967, The Monkees sophomore LP, More of the Monkees, is celebrating 55 years on the shelves today. It marked both the peak of the band’s popularity and the turning point for them as a “manufactured image”.

With the wild, unprecedented success of the TV show and their debut eponymous LP in the latter half of 1966, their record company was eager to get more product to market as soon as possible. The whole processed was so rushed, in fact, that the band themselves were not even aware of the 2nd album’s release until they stumbled on it in a record shop while on tour in Cleveland, Ohio. Not only were they taken aback by being so completely left out of the loop, but they were also horrified by the cover. It used a photo take of them wearing some decidedly unhip JC Penny clothing from a shoot they thought was only for an ad campaign for that store. And again, Don Kirshner, then musical director of the show, had exercised his control in picking the songs for the album, out of a batch of some 34 titles they’d recorded late in 1966, without consulting any of the members of the band. Nesmith had still been granted a couple of token tracks for his original compositions, but only one of which where he sang lead vocal.

The frustration at being so disconnected from the music production process ate away at Mike in particular, more so than the others, but he was still able to rally support for his concerns from the other guys as well as series creator, Bob Rafelson, and producer, Bert Schneider. This frustration all came to an infamous head during a meeting with Mike, Kirshner and his lawyers where Nesmith put his fist through a wall right next to the head of one of the lawyers after being presented with a rather large cheque they assumed would buy him off. They got their answer from Mike in the form of a dent in the wall. The final straw came when Kirshner released a single without consulting anyone and he was formally dismissed from his position and the group were finally able to secure control over their musical output.

Despite the contentions, lack of input and the godawful album cover, the record still contains a host of songs which would become classics and it became a massive hit record. Their debut was still in the #1 album spot on the Billboard charts when More… pushed it off the top. Collectively, the two records spent a whopping 31 consecutive weeks in that position, with More of the Monkees taking up 18 of them. The album has since been certified quintuple platinum. In addition to the smash hit single, the Neil Diamond penned I’m a Believer, the album features such other favorites as Nesmith’s Mary Mary, the Boyce & Hart proto-punk of (I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone and a second Diamond gem, Look Out (Here Comes Tomorrow).

Though the group would assume significant control over their music on subsequent albums, and those efforts would initially prove commercially viable for album sales, their singles were never quite as popular after the departure of Kirshner. The man simply had an ear for infectious pop hits. However, what they lacked in commercial savvy, they more than compensated for with artistic merit as they took full advantage of their access to studios, musicians, songwriters and recording time to create a massive catalogue of beautifully crafted pop confections, exploring a sprawling array of styles and techniques. While they were certainly a coherent band on the Headquarters album that followed, where they played all the instruments themselves, the albums that came after that reverted to a sort of mixed usage of session players and undermined their cohesion, turning them into four concurrent solo artists pooling their songs on the same albums. At least they were each, individually, able to pursue their own vision of what they wanted to do as artists. While More of the Monkees may mark the high water mark for the band commercially, it was only a stepping stone for them creatively. Yet with so much prolific output to come, it’s still shocking to consider that it would all be over in the span of a few short years. At least for the first chapter of their story.

THE DOORS @ 55

 

Released on January 4th of 1967, The Doors eponymous debut LP is marking its 55th anniversary today. It is often considered one of the greatest debut albums of all time by any rock band, a level of acclaim that may well be exaggerated (and there are certainly those who have called the band “overrated”). However, any objective examination of the album reveals it to be sustained by a host of iconic songs which have become emblematic of their time, influential in their legacy and remain relevant in the modern era.

The album is also considered one of the cornerstone releases of the psychedelic era, though it manages to achieve that association without any of the usual production indulgences which typified so many of the records associated with that label. In fact, producer Paul A. Rothchild forbade Robbie Krieger from using a wah-wah pedal on his guitar because he didn’t want to “date” the album. The same went for the rest of the production which eschews the excessive use of feedback, echo, phasing or backwards recording which were often trademarks of other LSD inspired LPs. Yet it still manages to find a surreal plain to inhabit by virtue of the song writing and the inventive arrangements, which straddle a variety of musical styles, from jazz to classical to vaudeville and more, in order to create a pastiche of influences that give it a somewhat dreamlike disposition. It’s a mood that could also slip into the realm of nightmares as the album climaxes with the apocalyptic, nearly 12 minute dirge, The End, a brilliantly conceived ode to termination that still allows for a multitude of layered interpretations, from failed romance to global Armageddon.

Of course, the centerpiece of the album is the hit single, the second from the album after Break On Through failed to chart significantly, Light My Fire. Along with The End, it has a certain kind of nihilism to it that made the listener want to immolate their inhibitions on the band’s sacrificial alter as they invoke a rather Pagan animism of the power of the flame. The sexual charge of the song was provocative enough on its own, but the allusion to drugs with that “girl we couldn’t get much higher” lyric proved enough to send poor Ed Sullivan into a rage. When the band refused to change the lyric when they performed on his show, especially after they'd agreed beforehand to do so, it resulted in them being banned from returning.

Overall, it’s pretty much the band’s most consistent and potent album. There are other classic songs on other albums, but the full weight of perfection on their debut was basically impossible to surpass and, as Morrison slipped deeper and deeper into the hazy lifestyle of drugs and booze that eventually took his life, his ability to deliver the goods became increasingly compromised, preventing him from hitting the same highs. For me, it’s the one album of theirs that I can play from start to finish and enjoy the entire ride. I think it occupies a significant and vital place in the puzzle that is the intricate tapestry of the late 1960s and the cultural revolution which swept the western world at the time. It’s also an album that has gone on to influence generations of subsequent experimental and alternative bands who have looked back to The Doors as exemplars of adventurers daring enough to travel in strange lands.