As before, here’s an extract from a review in the NME. No clues: no year, no journalist name… Which album do you think is being reviewed? I expect this to be a quick and easy one – if someone hasn’t got it right by afternoon tea, I’ll eat ma bunnet!
“…all quite without consequence – idiot blues, folk and the sweating labours of a rock music taken by an agonising bowel disorder. It isn’t ABBA who are the most pernicious influence to have blighted popular music – it may still, alas, be this terrible group.”
“Yoiks! Haven’t we just had one of these?”
In Through The Out Door?
NME
Nick Kent
Don’t think Nick Kent was so anti-LZ. He said something vaguely positive about PG once, the album. Sounds more like Tony Parsons to me, although his use of language was rather more basic. No idea.
No doubt, DF. My memory of individual writers is hazy at best.
I thought the word ‘still’ was doing some heavy lifting in the piece quoted above, that’s why I went for a later album by a well-established group.
Deceptive Bends by 10cc…?
It’s either The Chosen Few by The Dooleys or Led Zeppelin 3 not by The Dooleys. 😉
it might be the Dooleys punk album ‘Never mind the Goolies’
Or the later one “I grabbed you” by the Dooleys?
This site is going Dooleys mad! What have I started?
You think The Dooleys are always going to matter to you, that you will never tire of the thrill of the wild abandon of that visceral, pure noise that only they can bring forth like all the angst and pain of the world that you felt when you were a certain age. Then one day you wake up, and The Dooleys don’t mean what they once did. It was about your youth, it’s just not the same somehow. You still hear the soundtrack in your head that once meant everything but you just don’t need to play the records any longer.
This place is riddled with closet Doolighans whose time has finally come!
It’s gone Doo-La-Ley
Obviously a tosser (the writer), but it’s Led Zeppelin
Is it “A Quick One” by The Who?
the review mentions ABBA, so I don’t think so… although it could be the Who by Numbers maybe…
I was thinking of the 10th anniversary reissue – which by my reckoning would have been about 4 years after ABBA started, so met the review criteria…..
Paul Young – No Parlez
Oh well – 4pm…I was wrong.
So: bunnet lightly toasted with cream and jam, pot of Assam…
Since it wasn’t as quick and easy as I thought, we’ll run it for about 24 hours. Big reveal at 12:00 BST tomorrow (Friday).
Out of interest and for my future reference: would y’all prefer me to flag it up immediately when someone gets it right – or let it run to the closing bell? I’m never sure…so do express a view, if you have one.
Let it run!
Flag it up
A perfectly balanced sample – thanks, chaps!
Anyone care to increase the sample size?
Let it run
Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes.
Is it The White Album, by any chance…? Maybe a review of the remastered one in 1987. Probably Swells.
I first thought LZ.
Presence?
Is it something by The Tull?
Influential?
It might be The Stones actually. Emotional Rescue?
that doesn’t have the folk part, though… but it’s the sort of record that they would have taken aim at. It seems to be widely unloved, but I always liked it better than most of the more obvious ones. It’s just sort of… greasy.
Led Zep – Coda?
that does fit the bill, it’s got blues, folk and rock that sounds like it needs a poo. Most of the other suggestions don’t have folk.
@Boneshaker
The winner!!
I’d like to thank my agent, my wonderful wife, my……
…..actually I just bandwagoned off everyone else saying Led Zeppelin and picked the least popular of their albums I could think of….
Is there a prize?
The Who By Numbers
(review penned by some cloth eared hack)
Ian McDonald on The Bee Gees – Saturday Night Fever
ELO – New World Order?
Did you do that on purpose?
Is it something that is easily Googled?
Yes.
It’s an honour thing…
Surely it’s a Beatles album, probably considering a reissue of Sgt Pepper.
My next best guess is some Rolling Stones album. Could be anything from Exile on Main Street to Undercover.
Unless it’s actually (80’s) Morrissey, the reviewer is trying too hard to sound like Morrissey.
I hope he’s talking about Queen, though.
Jazz by Queen is a possibility. That was absolutely hated by everyone at the time (sod them all, it’s great!)
That dismissive and almost abusive writing style is archetypal of early to mid 80s NME. Led Zep were everything most NME writers of that period loathed deeply with a passion , so its quite likely to be them. Coda was released in the same time frame so it would fit the bill nicely.
I’d be pretty certain you got it right (as did the NME – a terrible, terrible record. Appalling.)
Okay
The big reveal:
Writer was Richard Cook, reviewing in the NME, 11/12/1982
Album was Coda by Led Zeppelin
A few people got it right – and a few people guessed it was a Zep album – but by my reckoning, the white carnation goes to Boneshaker, who seems to have been the first! Huzzah!
I was pretty sure it was them and guessed accordingly, but you didn’t bite so I suggested someone else. I actually remembered reading the review at the time
If you’d guessed the correct album (see OP) as well as the correct band, you’d have been the winner!
You expect me to know the name of Led Zeppelin albums? Blimey 😉
I don’t expect anything of you – but that’s the difference between being a winner…and, er, not! 🙂
Wait. I know this! I, II, III, IV, important that it’s Roman numerals,…er… V?
That was fun, thanks! I like the thought of how many other albums this criticism could apply to, and it’s not that many. In my view it’s a bit harsh, but at the same time, it’s also true.
Am I the only person who actually thinks the most pernicious musical snob thing about the review is the entirely unnecessary and unmerited sideswipe at Abba?
You are not