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Rock And Roll Perfection In 1974

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Homer Simpson said, “Everyone knows Rock & Roll attained perfection in 1974. It’s a scientific fact.”

Of course, it’s a gag. The trope that 1974 was a terrible year for Rock is as prevalent as 1971 is its peak and just as wrong. Let’s demonstrate that 1974 wasn’t as bad as it’s made out to be and that Homer could be right.

As a first witness, I call Steely Dan. They may have sacked the band for Pretzel Logic but, my, it’s a wonderful record. More than that, it is rock perfection.

As a taster, here is the closing track, Monkey In My Soul.

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Comments

  2. We had discussed it, we were waiting for it. We had Countdown to Ecstasy and loved it. We saw each other on the way to cricket practice the next day, looked at each other and knew. Dave Meagrow, I hope you are out there somewhere and still playing this album today. I am.

    • I had no Steely Dan mates at the time. All mine loved Crime Of The Century, one of the albums that gives 1974 such a bad name. Dreamer was bloody everywhere and really upset my vestibular system as well as grinding my teeth. That year, I needed a dozen fillings on my annual visit to my cruelly interventionist dentist. I blamed Supertramp.

  3. From the final part of Little Feat’s mighty triumvirate (Sailin’ Shoes, Dixie Chicken) – Feats Don’t Fail Me Now (1974)

    Oh and Pretzel Logic was the first Steely Dan album I bought (many followed) and it’s still my favourite.

  5. Any year that includes Court and the Spark, Late for the Sky and Grievous Angel amongst it’s releases is far from a poor year.
    Tigg is right on the money about Rock Bottom. Impossible to classify. Mysterious and enchanting.

  6. RAWK N ROLL! Produced by George Martin in 1974. This band will cease to exist in two weeks. Fans will be flying in from around the globe for their final show at the Fiddlers in Bristol on Saturday 19th. This is already sold out but an extra show has been added on the Friday night.

      • I think you meant Friendliness is their best LP, but that was released in 1972. Wombling Merry Christmas ended 1974 in fine style though.
        Let us not forget this single peaked at number 10. Marvellous.

        • One of the many things that annoys me about this song is the title “Ma! He’s making eyes at me!” She clearly sings (and there is no ambiguity with the pocket foghorn that was ver Zav) Mama. Not Ma. Mama. Someone somewhere decided that Ma sounded better. The only thing I can think of is that Mama was a brand name for rickets powder or consumption pills.

  8. In 1974, it seemed that Island couldn’t put a foot wrong. (Well, maybe Nico’s ‘The End’…) In November of that year, Eno’s ‘Taking Tiger Mountain’ emerged. I still listen to it frequently, and with great pleasure….

  11. A quick peruse shows it was a great year for Van, It’s Too Late to Stop Now appearing that year, or so I have it recorded, along with the R&LT debut, I Want to See the Bright Lights, Quah by Jorma Kaukonen, L.A. Turnaround by Bert Jansch, (whispers) Diamond Dogs and Chapman Whitney Streetwalkers, all of which hold up well.

  14. Kraftwerk did Autobahn – which was their Cucumber Moment (ie going from being Very Good to Quite Unbelievably Ace).

    And I’d like to put a word in here for Walls and Bridges from the fascinating period between the Lost Weekend and the reestablishment of the Iron Rule of Empress Yoko.

    • Trouble with Walls And Bridges is that it was totally eclipsed by Band On The Run, released December 1973 but high in the charts for almost all of 1974. I like Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna. George’s Dark Horse is a bit weak.

      • 1974 was when I started getting my own LPs. I got Elton’s Greatest Hits and Ringo’s Goodnight Vienna. The latter appealed to me because of the cover. Ringo with the spaceship and robot from The Day Earth Stood Still movie. I was keen on sci-fi. I liked his cover of Only You. Things like Eno, Neil Young, Lou Reed were unknown to me. My sister favoured the Osmonds and the Stylistics. Innocent times.

        Can’s Soon Over Babaluma is a less heralded album of theirs from 74 which is worth investigating. More recently I became aware of Shuggie Otis’s Inspiration Information which is a fine thing.

          • Both Can and Shuggie are perfect. Both albums were pretty much ignored in 1974 and only got the credit they deserved years later. Soon Over Babaluma is Can’s first album without an actual singer. Nevertheless, Karoli and Schmidt manage to capture a low-key, laid-back vibe that pervades the album. Karoli’s guitar on Chain Reaction is otherworldly.

  15. Release of I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight, first heard played at a Bob Pegg and Nick Strutt gig in Bradford played over the PA. Bought it straight away and started by Richard Thompson collection. (though to be honest this has cooled in the last few years).

  16. For 1974 rock n roll perfection, that year’s “rock’n roll animal” or “Irish Tour’74” (Rory Gallagher) do the job of releasing the dandruff. With “Todd” and “Todd Rundgren’s Utopia”, “Apostrophe (‘)”, “Roxy and Elsewhere”, “Starless and Bible Black”, and “Fufillingness’s First Finale”, thinking-man’s progressive music was also well provided-for.

    • OK. I *get* that. Really, I do. I like a lot of depressing records. However, Bright Lights goes that extra step. The voices are so mournful, the music so dirge-like, by track three life is no longer worth living and by track five the noose is round my neck. It drives me to sucide. I can’t risk playing it whilst alone in the house with a bottle of whisky.

      I have it on my iPod. Since its release, I have listened to it, maybe, six times in total. How after do you turn to it, Actual?

  19. Reggae isn’t Rock. Obviously. Unless you are Bob Marley whose Natty Dread was released in 1974 as was Keith Hudson’s perfect dub album, Pick A Dub. One lady had a reggae album released in the UK, just one, but it was Marcia Griffiths. Sweet And Nice gives me the excuse to post my favourite reggae cover version ever.

    http://youtu.be/VDC4jhl8e3c

    The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

  22. Frank Zappa’s most commercially successful album Apostrophe arrived in 1974.

    So did Ry Cooder’s third LP Paradise & Lunch. It’s all good, so here’s a track almost at random: Fool For A Cigarette/Feelin’ Good

  23. 1974 also saw not one but two great albums from Maria Muldaur. Midnight at the Oasis is the one that gets all the attention, but then there’s this, Gringo en Mexico, from her second album Waitress in a Donut Shop. Album arranged by Benny Carter, no less, with appearances from Lowell George, Paul Butterfield, McGarrigles, Spooner Oldham, Elvin Bishop, Ray Brown, James Booker…they knew how to round up the session musicians in them days.

  25. ……and the Tom Waits album for people who don’t think that they like Tom Waits.

    I love it, and apart from Rain Dogs I think I come back to it more than any of his others. This is TW’s “Cucumber moment”.

    • Superb band on that one. Ry Cooder on guitar, Jim Keltner or Andy Newmark on drums. The Eagles sing backing vocals. Whatever you think of The Eagles, there is no doubt they are brilliant at backing vocals.

      • More importantly, if you are a Rasta, Haile Salassie was deposed in Ethopia in 1974.

        The two pop events that might get a mention in the history books haven’t even been touched on so far. They are Abba winning Eurovision with Waterloo and Queen entering their imperial phase with Seven Seas Of Rye.

  30. Eric Stewart and 10cc feature on the under-rated singers thread. In 1974, they made their best LP, Sheet Music. The album title and the song, The Worst Band In The World, may suggest otherwise, but it is, of course, perfect.

  31. I fear I may doing a KFD but I can’t let the thread die without Kimono My House. Sparks’ debut fulfils the criteria of a 1974 release and unquestionable perfection.

    Hasta Manana Monsieur

    • That is spooky. You and I were posting Sparks almost simultaneously. “Doing a KFD” indeed.

      I won’t ask you what that expression means. Some things are perhaps best left unsaid.

  33. Spark’s third album Kimono My House and this song

    finally put them on the commercial map.

    Was there ever such a talked about TOTP debut? The playgrounds of Britain were abuzz.

  34. While it was indeed a “talked about TOTP debut” I’d say Adam and the Ants “Dog Eat Dog” was the most talked about debut that I remember. At least at my school. Culture Club’s debut got tongues wagging too. It’s hard to fathom now why Adam caused such a stir. Cos he was so good and so different probably had something to do with it. Cos he had been so beloved by the punks and cool kids was another factor.

    • Couldn’t agree more. On The Beach is easily Young’s best. It was recorded in 1974 and is perfect. I’m not sure Neil likes it, though. He refused to allow its release on CD for many years, quoting ‘fidelity’ or ‘legal’ issues. Anyhoo, I struggle to find any rock & roll in its grooves. Vampire Blues is closest. It also demonstrates that he has been bothered about the oil industry for a long time.

      http://youtu.be/cAKTy_9Yok0

  40. Been having a Gene Clark day today. Just cos. No Other dates from 1974. ‘Tis a fine album. Rock ‘n’ roll might be pushing it but I’d call it pretty perfect, for a certain kind o’ mood. No I wasn’t listenin’ to it in ’74. I was 8, & probably lost in Wonderland, or through the looking glass, with Alice, but if I’d heard it back then I would’ve loved it I’m sure, as I do now.
    https://youtu.be/f2ViQXg_0bw
    https://youtu.be/GilrLIwBJE8

  43. A year with many celebrated acts past their best producing lesser works. Captain Beefheart released two rather unremarkable albums, although Bluejeans and Moonbeams does contain the wonderful Observatory Crest. The Stones It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll has it’s moments. Time Waits For No One is magnificent. Steely Dan, and Bowie still in the ascendance – with great things to come. Santana came out with the epic live Lotus. One of their best releases. In those days live albums were common, there seem to be a number of artists releasing both a studio album and live album in the same year.

    https://youtu.be/Svq9UFHVstU

    • I picked up Santana’s “Lotus” a couple of years ago after a wise Afterworder nominated it in one of those “Greatest Live Albums of All Time” threads that we have from time to time.

      It is, of course, tremendous – although the modest 2CD version is less visually spectacular than the triple vinyl monster pictured above.
      True, some of the tracks go on and on and on, but hell, I’m a Grateful Dead fan – I LIKE tracks that go on and on and on!

  45. This album is still in my Top 10 after all these years. You know when you get an album home and, after the first spin you have to put it on again, and again, that it’s a keeper.
    And a Track record, so a solid pressing to boot. Thank you Golden Earring. You never came close to this, but that’s OK

  46. There was the light and the dark. Stirring a new weird tightening in a fourteen year old boy’s tummy. Stevie would come later but first there was Linda.

    From Heart Like A Wheel

    You’re No Good
    Linda Ronstadt

    • There’s a bit of snobbery about this because it’s after Bunny and Tosh left. That’s bollocks, because this is an ace record – better than Burnin’, if we’re honest. Also Bunny & Peter got to make a load of ace records that they wouldn’t have had time to make if they’d still been Wailers. Result!

      I’ve said this before, but even if this is isn’t necessarily his best record , Natty Dread is a distillation of all that was best about Nesta as a songwriter and bandleader, before and after this.

      A hungry man is an angry man. He’s been in my kitchen at 3am on a Saturday night.

      • Not sure I agree that it’s “better” than Burnin’ but agree it’s a damn fine record. An amazing run of albums from Catch A Fire onwards. Marley’s global influence was far greater than our rock centric worldview allows.

        • Word. I waould argue that the run starts with Soul Rebel, produced by some hick called Lee Perry. (Oh dear, who’s the snob now?)

          But agreed, ND is the point at which BM goes from having Jamaican/English cult kudos to going outernational. Like Dylan before him, the concerns he expresses are based on stuff he’s seen in his neighbourhood but they could be applied almost anywhere in the world.

          And, more importantly, he understood the value of production – perhaps as a result of his work with yer man Scratch. This music just f***ing kicks. That space in Lively… That drum machine in So Jah Says – brilliant touch. And I love his vocal on Talkin Blues – he sounds joyful, tearful and vengeful in the same song without any audible gear change. Wow!

          • Natty Dread is his best in my view, except, maybe, for the original mix of Catch A Fire before the ‘rock’ elements were added. You can get a copy in the deluxe version.

            • Ohhh, but I like that solo on Concrete Jungle. It’s so parachuted in and yet so… gorgeous. It’s the roots reggae equivalent of the harpsichord in In My Life.

              As with Marcus Garvey after it, I am not a purist – after all, at this time of year I’m listening to A Christmas Gift For You in stereo (eeek!)

              But I very much tip the purists a wink.

    • 74 was a big year – it was when Miles retired from active duty. When he came back in the 80s arguably something had been lost. ’74 was therefore the end of a 30-year hot streak that had started with him being recruited by Bird. Forty years out from this we haven’t even begun to catch up.

    • If anyone is daunted by the two hour length of the whole album, please just listen to the first track, his tribute to The Duke. It is an emotional elegy that is one of Miles’s finest performances (and a fine Miles performance is extremely fine indeed). It really is special (lasting only twenty minutes!).

      • Hey Tiggs…. what do you think of Panthalassa?

        I like Panthalassa. Nobody else likes Panthalassa.

        It’s the LOVE of Miles albums.

        Miles said something along the lines that all musicians should get down on their knees every morning and give thanks to Duke Ellington. (And yet it was his old mate Trane who had the nerve to make an album with him)

        • If you put Get Up With It on at three in the morning in a hip club in Dalston all the cool kids would be like wow and wtf dude.

          The cool kids always get Miles. From about 1951 onwards.

          • I knew you would *simpers*

            Panth’ is a great “in” for people who are a bit intimidated by Electric Miles – which, like Can, is a helluva smoother and nicer than people think it is. And Bill Laswell did it. And he’s coooool.

            And while I’m here, if all that survived of Coltrane was the album he did with Duke – so bare, so tender – it would still be obvious that he was a pretty monstrous talent.

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