…hundreds of books have attempted to define or at least circumscribe the music or some part of the experience of hearing it.”
So begins the first edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide from 1979.
Some work was being done on our house yesterday leaving me without power for a couple of hours. While I was sitting at my desk my eye fell upon my old, battered copy of the red Rolling Stone Record Guide that was my beacon in my formative years of music infatuation. Nicked from the school library in about 1985 (no guilt – it hadn’t been checked out since 1980), I can’t overemphasise the importance of this book in my life right up until the internet era. I still have a mental barrier that runs through 1979, dividing music history into ‘classic’ and ‘modern’ eras. At the mention of a band I still instantly see the star ratings for their albums in my head.The book was illustrated with the covers of 5-star albums and seeking these out was my perpetual goal for a decade or more. I still have a natural aversion to albums it dismissed.
The book is in bad shape, its pages having that soft, furry feel of a hymn book from years of thumbing. It lived for most of my uni life in the magazine basket in the lav. Chunks and pages of the book have made a bid for freedom over the decades, and for the last 15 years or so its remnants lived in a plastic bag in a box. It was only during recent renovations that I pulled it out again and assembled the bits in order as best I could. So yesterday I lost myself in it again, fascinated by the window it provided into the 70s world of rock criticism and fandom.
Anyway, thought I’d steal an idea from the latest Word podcast, and post a few reviews as a quiz. I have made a few minor editorial changes as needed to obfuscate and remember that the cut-off date is late 1978:
1. “[Artist] is an Australian Hard Rock band whose main purpose on earth is to offend anyone within sight or earshot. They succeed on both counts” (All albums 0 stars)
2. “Punk rock’s answer to Linda Ronstadt? The band can play, in a sort of revivified British Invasion style” [Artist]
3. “[Album 1] is almost certainly the worst double set ever done by a major artist. [Album2], released a couple of years later, is an act of vengeance. [Artist] has lost his sense of humour in the 70s and this is as close to a joke as has been available from him in the last decade”
4. “Simple to an extreme, these Britons emulate but fail to match the early R&B-influenced exploits of groups like the Rolling Stones. Their LPs sound like sparse backing for a lead musician who never appears” [Artist]
5. “[Album] is a 22 minute composition that incapsulates the hypnotic redundancy of a 12-hour drive. Valuable both as a musical oddity and background music more watching tropical fish sleep”
6. “Allegedly, these guys have great lyrics, but they only send them to rock critics so you’ll never know. The lead singer makes Andy Capp sound like a BBC announcer” [Artist]
7. [Album] was a thickly detailed, somewhat stiff collection of generally less than great [Artist] tunes. It’s release was greeted with an effusion of paeans citing it as a bridge between pop and art”
8. “Limpid adult bubblegum rockers and ballads of numbingly ersatz sensitivity. The music is slick and efficient, if soulless. The vocal harmonies that were supposed to be the trio’s forte are so static when played at loud volume that they feel like needle pricks in the brain” [Artist]
9. “This is rather like the soundtrack to an LSD movie. The music has an exotic frothiness and the string settings are among the most gorgeous in rock history” [Artist and Album]
10. “The album consists of short, uncomplying melodies based on rock, classical and other themes, repeated over and over at sluggish tempos with various instruments playing the same part. It’s simplistic, monotonous and far too long”
11. “[Album] was the band’s first commercial failure, mostly because it was attempting to create the sort of pastiche the Beatles popularised with Sgt Pepper before there was a market for it. The music is strong but spotty”
12. “[Band] was probably the greatest American singles band. Led by guitarist/vocalist/writer [X], the group simply pumped out classic rock singles, one after the other.”
1. AC/DC?
2. Souxie & the Banshees?
4. Dr Feelgood?
6. Sex Pistols?
11. Their Satanic Majesties?
12. Creedence?
1, 4 and 12 correct.
So 11 must be Between the Buttons then.
Nope
These quotes really showcase the good-natured enthusiasm and passion for music that Rolling Stone was famous for.
10 Tubular Bells?
Or 5?
10 is Tubular Bells
I don’t have a clue – apart from no 1 surely must be ACDC and I agree with Rigid that no 10 is Tubular Bells.
Looking forward to finding out the answers though! Good thread, and makes me want to buy a copy of the book for myself….
Hmm…
1. AC/DC
2. The Pretenders
3. Self Portrait/Before The Flood
4. Status Quo
8. CSN
9. Forever Changes
10. Tubular Bells
11. Satanic Majesties
12. Creedence Clearwater Revival
1, 8, 9, 10, 12 correct. Another is close.
3. Self Portrait/Blood On The Tracks?
Nope, but close.
3. Live At Bhudokan/Saved ?
Self-Portrait/Dylan?
Finally!
5. makes me think of Eno, but if I’m reading it right, the whole album lasts only 22 minutes? Is 6. The Fall?
Nope
Bugger. But 5. is a 22-minute, one-track album, right?
No. The title track. Correct answer was below.
I wonder if 3 is Bitches Brew/On the Corner?
Nope, but you get a Kookaburra stamp because these are the two albums I was playing today while I worked (plus Jack Johnston).
I’m honoured…you’re not Philip Adams, are you?
Somewhat younger.
Is No. 11 either The Village Green Preservation Society or Between the Buttons?
Nope
Is number 5 “Autobahn” by Kraftwerk?
Correct
By my reckoning, numbers 2, 3, 6, 7 and 11 are still left. I’ll post some new ones soon.
2. Blondie?
Spot on.
Is 3 Elton John – Blue Moves being one of the albums?
No
6 The Clash
?
Yes!
7. Sgt Pepper
?
Yes!
11. The Who Sell Out
?
Is number 3 “Metal Machine Music” by Lou Reed?
11. Pet Sounds?
And yes. It’s easy to forget that Pet Sounds was generally considered a flawed curio until the first reissues started coming through in the 80s.
That is all the original 12 accounted for. New ones posted below.
13. “[Artist] is the missing link between Elvis Presley and middle-class sex-symbol clones like Engelbert Humperdinck. He pushes as hard as his awkward voice allows, never hitting a blue note. His singles have earned him a permanent niche in the annals of nursing home rock”
14. “Grunting, flailing Seventies hard rock, as vulgar as its name but less euphonious. For lovers of recycled Led Zeppelin riffs only.” [Artist]
15. “[Album] helped shape a set of baroque standards for art-rock, merging angry frenetic guitars and saxophones, delicate woodwinds and other acoustic instruments, and the symphonic majesty of the Mellotron”
16. “A heavy metal highlight of the late 70s, this quartet was also the least likely looking combo of the day: vocalist X and bassist Y were rock-star slim and blown-dry, but guitarist Z was a ringer for Huntz Hall of the Bowery Boys and drummer W looked like n overweight war criminal on the lam” [Artist]
17. “A group of Captain Beefheart-influenced dadaists who have one joke (they act like automatons) that they beat into the ground. They’re not too funny, they’re not much as players and their sophomoric philosophising doesn’t cover their lack of imagination” [Artist]
18. “A moody singer/songwriter, blander than Dylan, darker than Bacharach. Although his hits are numerous, he has never established himself as a serious artist in the manner of Dylan, although that’s obviously his deepest wish” [Artist]
19. “A staggering double album about three steps beyond some combination of delta blues and free jazz. His voice sounds like a wild animal, his lyric are often humorous, rambling discourses on the relationship between man and nature” [Album]
20. “[Artist] are now a household word, epitomising the elaborate craftsmanship of late seventies pop, the cultural transference between black and white music that has occurred in the past few years and the emotional vapidity dominating popular taste of late”
21. “[Artist]’s sound – a compendium of white American pop hooks welded to mesmerising synthesisers and the permanently anxious lead singing of the women – is pleasant and forgettable”
22. “[Artist] was never more than a poor man’s Lynyrd Skynyrd – some rural feeling but mostly just numbing guitar drive. Rock and roll can be mindless fun but it never deserved to be this empty headed”
23. “[Album] is so different from what the band had put on record before it sounds like it was recorded by a different group. For the first time the band was able to capture the live energy of a concert in the studio and the result was devastating.”
24. “This latest conglomeration of L.A session musicians made a hit out of a debut album that is all chops and no brains. Formula pop songs; singing that wouldn’t go over in a Holiday Inn cocktail lounge” [Artist]
25. “A melange of art-rock smarminess and pop song parodies that have occasionally clicked as hits. Critically overrated, mostly because the group’s fascination with pop formulas and studio technology is sufficiently pretentious to seem imposing to a bunch of college boys” [Artist]
13. Tom Jones
Yes
15 In The Court Of The Cromson King
Sounds interesting! But I’ll give it to you…
17 Devo
Correct
Is no.19 Trout Mask Replica by the Good Captain?
Yes.
No. 21 might be a rather uncharitable description of Abba.
It is. I deliberately kept my head low in the Abba thread, but I think “permanently anxious” is a cracking description.
Until they find a man.
18. Bruce Springsteen
20. Hall & Oates
24. Toto
25. 10cc
?
24 and 25 are correct.
16. Cheap Trick
18. Gordon LIghtfoot?
22. The Allman Brothers?
16 is correct.
The Allman Brothers was my first thought.
If it’s not them, then maybe The Outlaws or (outside bet) ZZ Top
I thought it could be the Outlaws, but I still enjoy their first album. And I’ve always preferred “Green Grass and High Tides” over “Free Bird” in the niche category of “Southern rock songs with multiple lead guitars that go on a bit too long”.
ZZ Top is correct.
18. Elvis Costello
or Donovan.
Actually, is Donovan the answer to all of them?
Both incorrect, but I should give you half marks because Donovan invented rock quizzes (probably).
I’m off to bed. I’ll post some harder ones tomorrow.
Harder ones? Blimey, I don’t think I’ve got one of these right yet!
I’ll be honest, at least half of this book is 70s soft rock acts that you and I have never heard of that get a column of one star reviews.
In that case the answer to one of them has to be Bonaroo. Or Pablo Cruise.
If I remember correctly the guide was very Doors and Tull friendly. The Beatles generally too, regardless of their uncool status here in the UK at the time.
The red one, this one, was very Doors friendly. Famously, the blue one that came out a few years later smashed them.
That’s the bitter vanity of most Rock hacks for you. Either arse kissing or pelting with stones.
It’s a fascinating window into the pre-reissue world, where the Stones peaked with Beggars Banquet (Exile and Sticky get 4 stars, Goats Head gets one star, Pet Sounds was a commercial artistic flop and rock and roll was recent enough for its major artists to still be considered without a lens of nostalgia.
20. Fleetwood Mac?
No.
Um, 18. Leonard Cohen?
No.
14 Judith Priest (as it were)
Yes.
Only 18, 20 and 23 left.
23. Thin Lizzy – Live And Dangerous
18. Randy Newman or Jackson Browne
23. Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers
No to all three.
Well, it was worth a try …
I particularly liked Live and Dangerous for 23! Could also have been Waiting for Columbus.
18. Scott Walker
20. Steely Dan
23. The Who – Who’s Next
23 is correct.
18 and 20 still outstanding. I will post a few more difficult ones if anyone is interested.
Is 18 Ed Sheeran and 20 Girls Aloud?
Clever!
26. “One of the great sixties rock groups, [Artist] helped introduce almost every significant technical innovation in the rock of their period: feedback, modal playing, fuzz tone etc.”
27. “[Album], a lengthy and ponderous double album, slows down and widens their earlier moves, one deliberately paced song per side. A certain spark is gone, but an agreeable calm emerges. Subtle, though hardly dull, it rarely rocks.”
28. “There’s a cleanness of line and lack of distortion to this music that belies its place in the punk-rock pantheon; its motives are too self-consciously arty for that” [Album]
29. “[Artist] never quite fit into any rock genre. They were simply a British hard-rock act, with overtones of art rock and boogie music, without a central personality but capable of slugging it out on one-night stands throughout the U.S and U.K”
30. “[Album] featured only him on three of the four sides. It remains [Artist]’s definitive opus, an ambitious, challenging and completely successful venture into everything from Motown paradoxes to pop to hard rock.”
31. ” On [Album], [Artist]’s almost motionless settings become a kind of dream-like, pastorale meditation. Much of the music uses a well-ordered, though exotic, rhythm track under beautiful melodic fragments or wide washes or organ or synthesiser.”
32. “[Artist] combined a timeless lyricism, an archivist’s purism, rock and roll punch, Cajun good times, superb original songs and a sense of humour that led to marvellously idiosyncratic readings of obscure Dylan tunes.”
33. “Is this America’s greatest rock and? Certainly it’s the most amusing. [Artist] know only one tempo-accelerated- their lyrical subject matter is puerile and inane and the singer ain’t real tuneful. As a result, they are great, the embodiment of the amateur passion of rock and roll at a moment when it has nearly died out.”
34. “Cheap platers too incompetent for as bad a judge of heavy metal horseflesh as Ritchie Blackmore. Destined for the glue factory.” [Artist] – This one is hard!
35. “If you need conclusive evidence that not everything that followed the Beatles out of Britain in ’64-5 was brilliant, by all means hear this. It would be cheaper and no more unpleasant to record yourself in the shower while holding your nose. Yecch” [Artist]
27. Physical Graffiti
No
30. is Something/Anything by Todd Rundgren.
26. the Yardbirds/Jeff Beck?
33. the Ramones?
All correct (Yardbirds)
28. London Calling
No, and came out too late for this edition.
Is 34 wild Horses?
Actually they’re too late for this. Is it something horsey?
No. Which is strange considering the equine references they drop twice.
27. Tales From Topographic Oceans?
Of course!
I think they went pretty easy on it compared to most critics. I love it.
35 – Freddie & the Dreamers?
Wrong, but you’re thinking along the right lines.
Shame, one day I’ll find the question Freddie & the Dreamers is the right answer to!
Swinging Blue Jeans? Fourmost? Searchers? etc?
Correct answer below – Herman’s Hermits.
Question may be “Which English pop band was least troubled by amorous female fans during their 60s heyday”
Arf!
28. sounds like Marquee Moon.
No, and I deliberately set that as a trap because the description was suitable for Television (Marquee Moon gets 3 stars, btw)
28. The Scream, Siouxsie and the Banshees?
No
29 sounds like City Boy
No
35 Herman’s Hermits
Yes.
33 The Ramones
Yes
28 Horses by Patti Smith
No
28. Chairs Missing by Wire
I’ll give it to you. Pink Flag by Wire
OK, time to wrap this up. Outstanding answers were:
18. Neil Diamond
20. Bee Gees
29. Wishbone Ash
31. Another Green World – Eno
32. Fairport Convention
34. Elf (I told you it was hard!)
Thanks for playing everyone!
No. Thank you, Podicle. Cracking thread!
Hear hear!
I Googled the quote from the Elf review. I’ve never even heard of ’em!
Elf were Ronnie James Dio’s band. when Ritchie Blackmore made the first Rainbow album he basically used Elf (minus the guitarist) as the backing band. That’s why he’s mentioned i guess.