I love Be My Baby by The Ronettes. It’s a great, great record…. but the drumming from about 2:14 to the end has always grated on me. There’s just too much of it. Hal and Phil should have clearly checked with me before releasing it… Anyone else here love a song dearly “apart from that bit”?
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What madness is this? The bar of triplets right on the fade-out is, in objective fact, the pinnacle of all human artistic endeavour.
Ahh yes, the ‘drums falling down the stairs’ bit…
Dunno about “pinnacle of all human artistic endeavour”, but I see no problem with that ending.
I don’t much like the drumming in the verses, myself. That repeated double hit out of balance with everything else.
Yeah but yeah but – it’s made up for in the intro and verse, which are truly fabulous in all ways. And with Archie on the fade out too. Pretty chuffed Phil went with it after checking with me actually
Those ain’t triplets, they 16th notes.
I think the drumming is the best part of the song. All of it.
In an interview with Hal Blaine read years ago, it was said that Phil had been quite specific about how the drums were to be played for this song, but that once it got to the repeat/fade section, he could cut loose and do whatever he liked.
Big Yellow Taxi: that “laugh”.
Yes. That. What was she thinking?
I like it.
Not a big fan of Jools Holland tinkly piano solo in Cool For Cats.
Some days it just washes over, other times (mostly) it’s a definite “apart from that bit” moment
The first thing that came to my mind was Cool For Cats, but not for the piano. For the zonky breakdown in the middle. Squeeze had previous form on the zonky breakdowns though and it never improved the song.
Yeah the breakdown thing’s a bit shite. Jules is OK, he resorts to the old piano players’ ploy of triplets cos he can’t keep up with the groove…
I reckon Billy Joels ‘Goodnight Saigon’ would be OK if it weren’t for that horrible echo – ‘as sharps as KNIVES-KNIVES-KNIVES-KNIVES!’
The asthmatic guitar break in Young Americans by David Bowie. I know the version with it removed is played more often on radio but…who thought that was a good idea?
“Asthmatic guitar break”? Eh? I’ll need to listen to it again. I’ve never even noticed a guitar break in that song!
I know the part you mean, Bamber, and that’s a good way to describe it. Never thought it ruined the song though.
Quite appropriate, as Bowie’s saxophone playing is invariably described thus.
A few:
The whole ‘smelly’/’telly’ business on Up the Junction
The desperately-last-minute instrumental middle eight in ‘Unguarded Moment’ by The Church
Various grunting by Van on Veedon Fleece tracks (Bulbs, Cul-de-sac)
The chorus effect on Eric’s ‘While my Guitar Gently Weeps’ solo
I’ve always felt the Chuck Berry solo on Unguarded Moment is the most incongruous thing in their catalogue. It’s never made musical sense to me.
I think EC asked for that so it sounded less like him and more ‘Beatles-y’.
@podicle
Good call on Unguarded Moment. Spoils an otherwise great song. Never heard them play it live…any idea if they do that middle eight nonsense?
Let’s not even go near the organ solo on Mr M…..
The “I’ve been told – you’ve been bold..” bit in the otherwise perfect Satellite of Love.
Dream On by Depeche Mode has an annoying break in proceedings when an unnecessary synth water-drip effect stops the song almost stone dead. It’s not right. See me.
The Scud Mountain Boys’ Grudgef*** is brill, except for the rather wet guitar solo. When I saw that Joe Pernice was re-recording it with The Pernice Brothers I was looking forward to a great James Walbourne solo replacing it, but he doesn’t even play the solo. The solo is actually better, but the re-make is spoiled by the unnecessary backing vocals. The best versions have been when Joe plays it solo in concert.
Certain backing vocals spoil many a good song though. I’m a fan of Joe Brown’s albums of the last 20 years or so, but many of his songs, particularly his acoustic ones, have overbearing backing vocals that the songs don’t need. I wish he’d release an album of just him, his guitar and his ukulele, nothing else.
I regularly have this discussion with a mate of mine, as I particularly dislike the overbearing female backing vocals that our veteran singers added to their songs, whereas he quite likes it. Leonard Cohen did it loads, but it’s also evident with Lou Reed, Van Morrison and both David Gilmour and Roger Waters, particularly on their 1980s recordings. It sounds too much like a club turn for my liking.
I can’t stand brassy, shouty female backing vocals. Think ‘Livin’ Thing’, ‘Love of the Common People’ and everything by the Mamas and Pappas. It may stem from my pathological hatred of musicals and anything that sounds like a chorus line.
The crash cymbal in ‘Hurricane’.
The golden rule of crash cymbals is that you can have one, but you’re only allowed to use it (at most) three times within a song. NOT AS PUNCTUATION IN EVERY FUCKING VERSE.
Honorable exception for the aformentioned Up The Junction. Gilson can do what the hell he likes.
Never mind the crash cymbal. If someone could point me in the direction of a remix of the whole of Desire WITHOUT THAT SODDING VIOLIN RUINING EVERYTHING I’d be a happy man.
I thought it was only me with regards to this. Haven’t listened to the album in years, purely for this reason.
I tend to tune out at the coda of Arcade Fire’s Wake Up, the double time bit. They were doing just fine up until then.
That awful anaemic Sladealike riffing towards the end of the knife. (See also Saturday Night by the Eagles.)
Two from the Kinks
See My Friends – atmospheric proto-psych faux Indian drone interrupted by chocolate box middle eight seemingly dropped in from a totally different song.
Till The End of The Day – the double time ‘rave-up’ part at the end
There’s a Drifters record I have somewhere that has a totally lame chugging guitar bit in the middle. It just sounds like they were going to insert a sax solo or something there but simply forgot.
I think it’s Saturday Night At The Movies. Just checked online. Seems to be two versions – one with the gap and one with some orchestral mush inserted. Weird.
I have edited two albums for my own delectation, and both sound better:
1. Todd Rundgren’s “A Wizard, A True Star” doesn’t need “dogfight giggle”. It’s rubbish.
2. “Moby Dick” on “Led Zeppelin II”; I have the nice meaty riff from Bobby Parker’s “Watch your step” and the similar outro, played by the band, but Bonzo’s tub-thumping: no thank you. Again, MUCH improved.
Re: ““dogfight giggle”. It’s rubbish.”
Yeah – but it’s only one minute and five seconds of rubbish!
1 min 5 seconds too much ; it ruins the evolving atmosphere
weird noise shit like this on records annoys me terribly, even on Zappa.
I have a few off the top of me head.
On Oasis’ Champagne Supernova they should have made netter use of a pop filter. There are some serious spitty plosives in there. Maybe it’s deliberate.
On Hybrid’s ‘I Know’ (from the magnificent Wide Angle album) the lead singer is seriously out of tune on one of the lines near the beginning. Also, when the drums first kick in they are way over threshold and distorted.
The Housemartins ‘Build’. Now, I actually like the Heaton long notey bit in the middle, but the timing seems way off on part of it. By all means keep it in, just do it better.
The long note on Build is crap. They must have had a better take than that.
I love Elton’s ‘Tiny Dancer’ but to me it seems just one verse too long.
Doesn’t need the middle 8, in Almost Famous they edit it out and the song is much improved as a result
Earworm By Proxy – I only have to hear or read ‘Tiny Dancer’ for the song to play on constant repeat inside my brain
Earworm by Proxy. TMFTL.
Arf!
Tom Waits – apart from the bit when he starts singing.
Tom Waits once he abandoned melody for the easier route of kicking old paint tins around.
The last 5 seconds of, er, Seconds by the Human League.
The bit between the run in grooves and run out grooves on Bohemian Rhapsody.
One that really grates is the whistle and drum on the whistler by Deaf OToole on the line “I have a fife and a drum to play.
Wrapped in Grey by XTC
A slow fade would have been lovely – instead it goes all ‘Martha My Dear’ for the last 30 secs.
I think Andy Partridge might have admitted since that it wasn’t the best move.
I know what you mean, but the ‘proper’ ending segues better into the next track, Ugly Underneath.
I agree with you, Gary, that it flows better on the ‘Nonsuch’ album to have that as a segue, but it is also the last track on the ‘Fossil Fuel’ compilation with the result that that album comes to a grinding incongruous end…
The zonky breakdown (as Jorrox call it) in the middle of Whole Lotta Love…I can appreciate they needed something to contrast the rest of it….that wasn’t it*.
The Peter Sellers (if it’s him) and organ noodling samples shoehorned into Big Audio Dynamite’s Rush.
*Because of course I know so much better than Jimmy Page.
George Martin’s double speed piano, that sounds like a harpsichord, in the middle of “In My Life”.
It just sounds wrong and something thrown in to provide contrast, which indeed it does, but to such an extreme that it hurts my ears.
Warning! You might not be able to unhear this anymore. In which case, if you’re a Dan fancier, take a walk.
Bugging me since 1975: it’s the drumming on Katy Lied. Becker/Fagen could have had anyone but chose one-trick pony Jeff Porcaro. He’s startlingly one dimensional on, say, Rose Darling, and Dr Wu is decent but his diddle-dap-dap occurs at different speeds all over the record. Shudder.
While we’re in Dan-grumbling mode, the utterly pointless percussive intro (log drum?)to “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number”, that makes you wonder if your music system has malfunctioned.
What a strange and perplexing way to start off an album.
No wonder The Dan are an acquired taste to some, anathema to many.
I always think it odd that, as far as I know, the ‘log drum’ intro only exists on the original album version of Pretzel Logic. It isn’t on the Citizen Dan box set or the ‘best of’ type compilations that are around. I am, however, happy to be corrected 😐
Actually I quite liked that original intro.
Well the Horace Silver motif they borrowed for Rikki had been a mere 7 years before, so perhaps it was a little subterfuge to distract from that, it being right at the start of the LP side.
I’m quoting from someone else, on my phone, but I can’t let this pass.
All of Porcaro’s fills are timely, varying, and succinct. An early display of his signature rock shuffling abilities comes forth on “Black Friday,” and later, an authoritative blues shuffle on “Chain Lightning.” And then there’s “Your Gold Teeth II,” where he ends up sounding like Elvin Jones playing behind John Coltrane. That innate ability to swing so strongly just doesn’t happen with rock drummers but even this early on, Porcaro wasn’t merely a rock drummer.
So there.
And the intro to Rikki is Victor Feldman playing a flapamba (a bigger marimba). Sounds lovely to me!
Varying? If only!
Look, the lad could play, he’s all over Thriller and The Nightfly and those Poco hits and is indeed rightly famous for his shuffle. His work on Katy Lied, though, is not always up to scratch. Not much Elvin on Rose Darling. Give it a spin, Tig.
Actually, scrub that one-trick pony crap, Porcaro isn’t to blame. It’s that noise reduction disaster the band had that wasn’t quite reversible (detailed in the Sweeting book). The album came out and was full of great songs as usual, we just didn’t quite get the fact that something was amiss with the sound of the recording/mastering/pressing. The band also stressed on the sleeve how high quality the recording was, playfully perhaps? The drums suffered especially, sounding hollow and boxy and almost completely stripped of the lovely metallic sheen some kits have, witness Porcaro on The Nightfly for instance for a better example of what he was about. It’s like he had to play through a wet blanket. Then your swing becomes laden down and drags its ass a bit. Qed. It’s taken me a while to realise that what the drummer played is not quite what’s coming out of my speakers and that’s not his fault. He was only 20 at the time as well.
I’d be very interested to hear other impressions about the Katy Lied sound. You there, Fentonsteve? Or anyone else with decent kit?
PS. All of this on the basis of listening to my original issue vinyl on my Sondek/Ittok/Karma via Meridian 101 and Linn LK240/Spark through Ruark Templars.
@fentonsteve
@Tiggerlion
I’m quite happy to diss Katy Lied. Its release was a dark moment for me. I was already pissed off they’d bailed out of their Pretzel Logic tour (I had tickets for Manchester). The cover didn’t bode well. It just seemed to be a blur (I remain very short-sighted). When I played it, it sounded like sludge. This wasn’t the Steely Dan I knew and loved, the one whose first three albums had got better and better, culminating in the work of genius that was Pretzel Logic. I seem to recall an apology on the cover. Even so, it tested my mettle as a Steely Dan devotee.
I’ve just listened to the 1999 remaster ripped to an iPod, played through a Bose Surroundsound system in my Ford Fiesta. The sound is pretty much fixed. The piano is gorgeous, the guitars crunch, the backing vocals are creamy. The songwriting is quintessential Steely Dan. They had found their niche; twisted songs, top class musicians, lovely on the ear, disturbing in the mind. I don’t think Fagen has ever sung so well.
However, Pocaro remains ill served. The recording of his kit lacks warmth. A decade before the gated snare, his drums sound blocky and the cymbals fail to zing. Nevertheless, his playing is excellent. Just listen to Your Gold Teeth II followed immediately by Chain Lightening; free form to groove. It’s very impressive.
I’d always regarded Katy Lied as the Dan’s worst album but the 1999 remaster really opened my ears. If you have original vinyl, I’m guessing it still sounds like sludge no matter how fancy your equipment.