With due deference to fitterstoke, whose idea this is – what’s the magazine, the band, and the album?
“ … an amazing group. Each of them highly competent and talented musicians, yet music is only secondary to what they are doing. They are violently anti-commercial in their stance and approach, and yet the finished product is highly commercial … they have not attempted to make any big changes in direction but have refined and enriched their previous efforts …”
I don’t see youse bums getting far with this, so clues, in the form of further extracts from the review, will be forthcoming. Or not.
Very tricky, HP – not knowing the magazine means we don’t know whether the review above is likely to be genuine; or bitingly satirical…
Is the answer to all three questions Gymslips?
Given your known predilections, I’m going for Yes and Toppo. Magazine unknown. MotorCycle News?
Your reasoning was very similar to mine, though your answer was quite different.
Here’s another clue for you all:
Not a U.K. magazine.
(Which rules out something north of 99 per cent of you having a clue)
Pravda? The NewStraits Times? The Siderial Daily Mentioner?
Could we have a clue using interpretive dance?
Well, I’ll go for the obvious mag and say Rolling Stone.
Maybe reviewing American Beauty by ver Dead? (It did cross my mind that it might be something by The Monkees…)
Rolling Stone it is. The Dead and/or The Monkees it’s not.
The name of my guess is Talking Heads – about Remain in Light – and printed in Rolling Stone or the Mekong Daily Bugle.
Sounds like the Quo to me
Lighthouse Family
Buena Vista Social Club
Scouting for Girls
Is it Big Cock by King Kurt?
(actually called Second Album on the labels, but the sleeve image is a huge male chicken)
Steely Dan? Maybe Aja.
Kudos, but no dice.
Dollar?
Is it Lulu?
(©️ Paul Merton 1990-2024)
A dolphin in a bathtub?
R.E.M., possibly?
Much earlier (another clue).
Dollar
Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.
The Residents
That was going to be my wild guess.
If you’re going to be completely wrong, you may as well be interesting about it.
Late period Talk Talk. Apart from the ‘highly commercial’ bit…
Jefferson Airplane reviewed by Lester Bangs
Bugger, Dai is rihgt- it’s The Doors
I deleted my post to give others a chance
You’re a great man.
I’m guessing this a sixties review and American, given HP’s predilections. I’m not familiar with any other American magazine than Rolling Stone.
Which sixties band consists of dazzling musicians whose stance is anti commercial but sold a lot of records? Maybe, The Stones, but I reckon an American band, too. Maybe The Grateful Dead who didn’t change much but dazzling musicians, really? HP loves The Beach Boys but they had to hire crack musicians to play the instruments. The Byrds? CSN&Y? neither are anti-establishment enough, are they? Love? They changed direction like a spinning top, as did The Mothers and Zappa. The Doors? Jefferson Airplane? Am I getting warm?
“Previous efforts” suggests third album of later. Surrealistic Pillow was the ‘Plane’s second and I don’t know any after that. The Doors third was Waiting For The Sun, a lull after the excitement of the first two, an album that tread water but still got to number one in the US and included a weird single that hit top spot, too.
My answer: The Doors – Waiting For The Sun reviewed in Rolling Stone.
So…not Dollar, then?
No.
American Beauty is a good shout, though. HP is more impressed with their musicianship than I am and they have anti-establishment attitude running through their drug-clogged veins. Was it a commercial success? It sounds glossy enough to me.
Tiggerlion gets the Golden Seaswallow Of Knokke Award for rightness! It’s The Doors, reviewed in Rolling Stone (second issue, fact fans). Brilliantly deduced. I thought “previous efforts” would mislead the brightest and the best, and it has. Not Waiting For The Sun.
R.S. album reviewers didn’t get bylines back then, so the writer will remain unknown.
Get it not Wrong! Dai supplied the rihgt answer around three o’clock yesterday afternoon. Tigger obviously cribbed and should be banned from this site.
Yes. I’m sure everyone is as disappointed with Tig’s Trump-like rewriting of history. He’s let the thread down, the Afterword down, but most importantly he’s let himself down. He has already been stripped of the prize which will be presented to Dai (with a bonus postal order for ten shillings) as soon as we can get the stadium again.
I didn’t see dai’s post but since he got the right answer before me, and I wasn’t completely correct, I agree he deserves the prize.
Hmm. Well, okay then.
I will privately send you my address, but DON’T EVER VISIT ME
That’s me knocking at the door!
@fitterstoke – next, please!
Well, OK – Tiggs has clearly put in the hard miles, so back to the OP.
“Enriched” previous efforts…if it’s not Waiting for the Sun – and it was reviewed in the second issue – then it can only be Strange Days. Can’t it?
Or have I misread…something?
You get the Runners’ Up prize – a strangely wilted white-ish carnation!