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Quiz Time! Redux

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Last year many of you were kind enough to participate in a quiz I created where I quoted reviews from the red 1st edition of the Rolling Stone Record Guide. Well, you can stop your angsty fretting and letter writing because now it’s time for the sequel!

I’ve recently picked up a copy of the Blue 2nd edition that extended the range from 1978 to 1982 or so. I explained in the previous post the impact that the red edition had on my music collecting and taste right up until its influence was finally eroded by the internet and print magazines in the mid 90s.

For much or the 80s and early 90s, this blue edition was a near-mythical beast amongst my record-collecting buddies, and one that I never actually saw in the flesh at the time. My mind ran wild with possibilities of the new ratings, and rumours of some previous critical darlings being lopped off at the knees.

Now I have it in my hands it doesn’t really seem that different. The few extra years offers only a small increase in girth, and most of the ratings and comments are the same as in the previous versions. There are some critical reversals (the Doors in particular) but it’s pretty mild. Exile, Sticky Fingers and Sgt Peppers are all still 4 star albums, as is Pet Sounds (it gained a star), and Ziggy has been docked a star to 3.

Anyway, here’s another batch following the same format. All the ones I’ve chosen are new to the blue edition (i.e. post ’78 and pre mid ’82).

1. Well crafted funk from the industrial wilds of Sheffield in England’s extreme north. Not yet a nightclub narcotic but their next album will be. [artist, album].

2. [album] was, if not a complete reversal of form, at the very least the band’s vindication, a record so shatteringly potent that it simply steamrollered skepticism. [song] finally snuck these hardest-core punks into the US Top 30

3. Serious consideration of [artist] is difficult indeed, because cleverly chopped coifs and daringly draped dress notwithstanding, they offer little of consequence beyond a beat.

4. [artist] seemed fine as a one or two shot novelty act. But extended to an album, especially an album that’s almost all rhythm track and chanting, [artist] is a headachy bore.

5. Instead of the expected grand art rock gestures, [artist] opted for a seductively groomed collection of Eno-esque tone poems, bright vanilla R&B flash and romantic balladry.

6. Their exuberance and pop optimism make [artist] sound like the Ramones gone three-dimensional, while the often bittersweet lyrics suggest that these ladies aren’t exactly the ‘heard it in a love song’ suckers their hook heaviness would imply.

7. They exhibit a fondness for brittle, simplistic funk riffs and dialectic lyrics. What has kept [artist] slipping into the postgraduate tedium the combination suggests is a flair for propulsive music with implicit pop hooks, and an understanding that the band’s ideology should never supersede its musical values.

8. [album] is [artist’s] attempt to establish once and for all that he is a rocker to the core, which is a nearly disastrous error, not so much because he can’t rock a because he is better at several other things.

9. Pop trash masterpieces from a hard-drinking, sawed off songster whose twisted talent was spawned in the British punk uproar. The songs specifically exalt the pop conventions to which they conform, only to trash them. Instrumentation and arrangements are harsh and hokey in turn, the teen dream an 80s nightmare, a smoking ruin of affairs gone bad, betrayal, unrequited lust.

10. [album], while primarily an anthology of previously released material, makes as strong a case for [artist’s] talents as Neil Young’s Decade does for his. On the strength of its new tracks, what [artist] does next is almost certain to be fascinating.

11. After being together three years, this English all-female group finally made a record. It reveals no singing ability, a rudimentary handling of musical instruments and rather poor reggae-influenced songwriting. [artist]

12. [album], apparently their last LP, demonstrates why they broke up. it’s the kind of music that passes for jazz in Holiday Inn lounges, with the kind of lyrics that pass for poetry in freshman English classes.

13. A collection of chirpy wiseass songs – some truly witty, others mere novelty fluff. The lead singer sounds like Deborah Harry with her IQ doubled, and even though her talky delivery and the music’s relentless, bouncy beat make the album overly same, several choice cuts are both screamingly funny and relatable.

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Comments

  15. By my reckoning, the following are still outstanding:
    3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

    Some tricky ones in there, and some not so tricky ones. Remember that I have drawn from that 79-82 era.

  22. 8 was Billy Joel’s Glass Houses, and this seemed to be a pretty common criticism at the time. Although in retrospect it’s surprising how mild the rock stylings were that elicited this reaction. His template was more Journey than Judas Priest.

    10 was Stevie Wonder Musiquarium. I included it because we forget that in 1981 Secret Life of Plants was seen as a blip on a decade long stellar run rather than an omen for the future.

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