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Spooky Songs: The Shangri-Las

With summer moving towards fall, and the greatest and creepiest holiday of the year now less than two months away, I thought I’d take a break from flogging the careers of bastards, and move onto another subject near and dear to my heart: Songs that unintentionally give one the creeps.

I’m sure if you’re like me, you have at least one childhood memory of sitting in a dark room listening to the radio. Suddenly, a song comes on that’s so weird, so dark, so strange, that you rush to turn the lights on and the radio off at the same time, for fear of losing your mind — or to ward off the beasts of hell that surely lurk within the song.

Of course, the song in question might be something by Gordon Lightfoot — but dammit, back then it was freakin’ scary, so lay off, man!

Anyway, these next few weeks, leading up to Halloween, I’m going to be giving you some of the most unintentionally creepy compositions that have burned themselves into my brain. I’d love you to use the comments sections to tell me about some of your own that you think I should cover.

So, let’s start things off with a bang — or a crash, if you’re talking about this group’s most popular song. The Shangri-Las might pack the most per-capita creepiness into their career than any other pop group (or at least girl group). Riding the early-’60s wave of both girl groups and teenager tragedy songs, the Shangri-Las’ first hit, “Remember (Walking in the Sand)”, provided a template for the rest of their career, using all the elements that would make them memorable: spoken lyrics, sound effects, and melodrama so rich it bordered on camp. These were mixed together with echo-drenched vocals that varied between emotive belts one second and almost zombie-like monotones the next, and all of it was produced via a dime-store recreation of Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound courtesy of Brill Building oddball George “Shadow” Morton (so nicknamed because he had the habit of often disappearing for days without telling anyone where he was going). (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Prince, “Batman”

Normally, this series takes on an artist who’s a bad person and whose “badness” has tempered his or her ability to make quality albums with consistency — in other words, those who have more or less stumbled onto a good album or two in their careers. If someone is too busy getting arrested, treating people like crap, letting his ego get in the way of other people having creative input, and spending his time punching gift horses in the mouth, it follows that his musical career will suffer. With this as my starting point, there shouldn’t be any write-up about Prince, namely because he’s remained generally successful for more than 25 years and was a superstar for most of the ’80s and the first half of the ’90s. On top of that, he put out a number of very good to excellent albums during that time, from Dirty Mind in 1980 to The Gold Experience in ‘95.

But then something struck me in the past week: it’s been more than ten years since Prince has put out anything really decent. I don’t agree with the gushing praise some people (I’m looking at you, All Music Guide) have given his last two albums — they’re paint-by-numbers bland. Maybe this is due to Prince getting older and “running out of things to say,” not to mention funky ways of saying it, but maybe it’s because his badness (as opposed to His Purple Badness) has finally caught up with him after all this time.

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When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Glenn Danzig, “Danzig II: Lucifuge”

Many artists put on emotional masks, and there are a multiplicity of reasons they do so. Some simply wish to distance the “real them” from the audience, in order to allow some semblance of their “true” nature to remain private. Others enjoy putting on an act, and feel that the creation of multiple personalities, fully controlled by them, is either an extension of their work, or perhaps just a way to mess with other people, or “give them what they want.” Others don’t start out with masks but grow to wear them, as the boundaries between what is internal and external blur, finally leaving an individual whose psyche is little different from what the gossip columnist or their own press agent claims them to be.

In most cases, the greatest danger that these masks, these falsehoods pose is to the artist him or herself. People who end up losing themselves in their character often end up emotionally distressed, spending their later years trying to get back to the time they lost, or they over-compensate, becoming a caricature of their public persona, as if to try harder to show that their problems are really just normalcy. We pity Michael Jackson, perhaps we hate him, but he isn’t changing our philosophies with his plastic surgeries. A few of us may on occasion ponder what will become of children raised by a parent like him; but we don’t think the mask he wears is really dangerous, even if he wants us to believe it is.

But then there are those who we really can’t tell are serious or not, and on top of that, who may, with their behavior, promulgate some of the worst tendencies among people. If they’re serious about that, that’s bad. If it’s just a put on, well, that’s possibly even worse. Take the example of Glenn Danzig, who has gained a reputation as diverse as his musical career. He’s been a godfather on the American punk and metal scenes. He’s been underground, and he’s been a sellout. He’s been seen as dead serious, and as either a master of irony or a put on. What he is — what he really is — is debatable, even after 25-plus years in the music business. But the fact that he has never sought to clarify some of the most hideous of his supposed tendencies makes him a classic candidate for this column. (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Ted Nugent, “Cat Scratch Fever”

At least in the mind of the man himself, Cat Scratch Fever is the work of the baddest mofo alive. A dude who will take your little ones crossbow hunting for bison in the surly woods of Michigan, take out a beaver or two with a semi-automatic, then serenade everyone around an open campfire with his bullet-deflecting rock and roll magic. To a great many more people, though — perhaps the majority of Americans, now that we no longer think fringe jackets and peach fuzz mustaches are de rigueur stylings for a job interview — The Nuge lies somewhere between a pathetic asshole that’s cool to make fun of, and that strange uncle that you don’t acknowledge is even a blood relation. A cursory glance at the man’s life instantly reveals the major levels of hypocrisy, idiocy, and in some cases, blatant criminality.

-Nugent is so cartoonish in his continued belief that “stoned, dirty, stinky hippies” and homosexuals are totally responsible for the ills of America that at times it seems that he could be a covert liberal in disguise as a Republican. He has stated that George W. Bush is not conservative enough, and that the problems the U.S. has had in Iraq are because we didn’t “Nagasaki them.” In August 2007, he threatened Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton at a concert, telling them to “suck on [his] machine gun.” He later directed a similar threat to both California senators, Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.

-The Nuge’s one admitted vice is women. When he’s not threatening to assassinate them, he’s fucking them. He likes a lot of them, and he likes them young. In fact, in order to once avoid likely statutory rape charges in 1978, he bought off the parents of his 17-year-old girlfriend, so that they would sign over the rights of legal guardianship to him, and he could continue to sleep with her without consequences. He also admitted a British newspaper in 2004 to cheating on his second wife and having a child out of wedlock with another woman in 1994. Of course, by the time he admitted to “being a prick” for his actions, he had already been sued twice by the mother of his child for child support. (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Robbie Robertson, “Robbie Robertson”

Robbie Robertson’s recorded output with his legendary band — that is, The Band — and his solo career would seem like different beasts on the surface. While The Band was known for its exploration of the various forms of American roots music — folk, country, and rhythm and blues — his solo recordings have aimed for a more expansive sound, incorporating electronic instrumentation, prog-rock arrangements, and even dance remixes. But beyond that, Robertson’s solo career actually follows a similar level of output as The Band: two good albums (or in the case of The Band’s first two, great albums), followed by a few more middling works, and then absolutely nothing for at least a decade. Eleven years passed between The Last Waltz and Robbie Robertson, and it was ten years this March that Robertson’s most recent record (Contact From the Underworld of Red Boy) came out. Don’t expect that drought to be broken any time soon: The only times in the last few years that Robertson has been attached to music was to help oversee The Band’s 2005 retrospective box set, and to make an abbreviated appearance at Eric Clapton’s Crossroads guitar festival last year.

Robertson’s solo career also follows a similar pattern as to his time both within The Band, and after their breakup: the pattern of being a flaming jag-off. How much a jerk you believe Robertson to be is usually inversely proportional to how much you like his former Band-mate, Levon Helm, since most of the more juicy tales about Robertson are tied to the decades-long feud between the two men.

-Both blame the other for the suicide of The Band’s Richard Manuel. Robertson blames Helm because Helm supposedly dragged Manuel along on the sans-Robertson incarnation of The Band, putting more pressure on the depressed and alcoholic Manuel until he got to the breaking point and hung himself in his Florida hotel room during a 1986 tour. Helm blames Robertson for breaking up The Band via his unilateral decision, and leading Manuel to be in no financial position to to afford proper treatment (since Robertson controlled almost all the songwriting and publishing royalties), and contends that re-forming The Band actually allowed Manuel to survive longer, regardless of his tragic end coming on tour. Robertson would eulogize Manuel on the opening track of his first solo album, “Fallen Angel” (download). (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Roger Waters, “Amused to Death”

You probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that this has been the hardest post for me to write since Popdose started. I mean, it’s been a damn month: what’s the holdup? Well, the truth is I discovered it is a lot easier to write about straight-up criminals like the members of Mötley Crüe, or hardcore divas like Diana Ross, than smug, pretentious assholes like today’s subject, Roger Waters. Simply put, it’s rather entertaining to write about individuals in the former categories. To write about Waters, however, is as trying a task as actually listening to his solo work in an attempt to find if any of them are worth talking about in this column. But I was able to find a good one, or a “good” one, depending on one’s ability to stomach conceptual prog joints. First though, a refresher on Herr Waters’ crimes of pomposity.

-Waters became the default main writer in Pink Floyd after Syd Barrett’s descent into mental illness, apparently exacerbated by a horrible LSD experience. And while Waters often spoke about how he wished to find and kill the man who gave Syd bad acid, this level of care did not apply to the addictions of other members of the band. Waters made the unilateral decision to fire founding Floyd member and keyboardist Richard Wright during sessions for The Wall, when he deemed Wright’s addictions too much of a distraction. Then, as an added slap in the face, he hired Wright back as a session musician to complete the album and go on the abbreviated Wall tour. In other words, Wright was not messed up enough that his talents couldn’t be used, but was messed up just enough that Waters wished to symbolically disassociate himself from him. Charming.

-More than just the main lyricist, Waters made himself de facto leader of the Floyd, taking complete creative control of the direction of the group. This culminated in refusing to put any Gilmour’s songs in 1983’s The Final Cut, then leaving the group after its release and declaring them over, with that album as their final, definitive statement, as if the rest of Pink Floyd really wanted to have their last album be a de facto Waters solo album: The record jacket even said “The Final Cut by Roger Waters, performed by Pink Floyd.” Waters then sued the other members of Pink Floyd to stop them from carrying on under that name after he left the group. His defense was that Pink Floyd should not be allowed to continue because he was the creative leader of the band, and additionally there remained only one original member (Nick Mason) who wanted to carry on. In other words, though Gilmour had been the musical centerpiece of the group for two decades, he was still nothing more to Waters than a hired hand to replace Syd Barrett, so f-all what he wanted. (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Rick James, “Street Songs”

When thinking about Rick James nowadays, it seems easy to slip into one of two moods: One is the enjoyment of the way Dave Chappelle satirized his life so humorously, making the phrases “I’m Rick James, bitch!” and “Cocaine’s a hell of a drug” part of the pop culture vernacular for umpteen months. The other is a sense of pity and sadness at a man who was cut down before his time, first by a stroke in 1998, then by death itself in 2004 at age 56.

What these two portraits painted of the original Slick Rick end up doing, though, is making people forget the things he did that went beyond simply having a “bad boy” reputation for loving to party, loving the ladies, and loving to imbibe in the various medicinal cocktails easily obtainable in the 70s and 80s. Things such as:

-After joining the US Naval Reserve at the ripe age of 15, James decided within a year that he preferred music to the military. So, he did what anyone would do in that situation: he just didn’t show up for involuntary weekend training, and went to gigs instead. Then, when word got to James that the military found out about his actions, he went completely AWOL and fled to Canada. Mind you, this was during a time when other members of the military were starting to head to Canada as well. But most of them were at least 18 years of age, and were doing it to avoid war, voice conscientious objection to the war, or both. In Rick’s case, he simply was trying to avoid paying the piper for choosing to spend his weekends holding a bass instead of an anchor.

-James first spent time in prison in the late ’60s — in a military brig, to be exact, after he snuck back into the U.S. to sign with Motown and record songs with his band the Mynah Birds (featuring a young Canadian by the name of Neil Young). As as result of a likely increase in success and income with a record deal, Rick and his bandmates informed their manager that they needed someone who could better manage their new day to day needs. Their old manager handled his dismissal surprisingly well, and with a lot of grace and…oh wait, no, he didn’t. He ratted Rick out to the Feds. (more…)

When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Mötley Crüe, “Girls, Girls, Girls”

[Note: Tom Werman, the producer discussed in this post, has disputed several elements of the story. To read his response, click here. --Ed.] We’re not too far away from a new resurgence of Mötley Crüe, with both a new album due soon (the first with all four original members in 11 years) and a big-screen version of the band’s “autobiography,” The Dirt, due in 2009. (Christopher Walken as Ozzy Osbourne? If it happens, I am so there.) The new album, Saints of Los Angeles, is supposed to follow the storyline of The Dirt to varying degrees, so fans will get to hear the boys tell their story two more times in the next year or so.

Needless to say, while the Crüe are sure to be reveling in tales of their debauchery and their “redemption” from personal addictions, I suspect they’ll gloss over some of the more corruptible behavior that they continue to indulge in even now the type of stuff for which this series was created. So today you get five dicks for the price of one, as I’m covering each of the band members and the infamous a-hole producer of perhaps their biggest albums. Roll call, please …

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When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Bobby Brown, “Don’t Be Cruel”

It seems almost mind-blowing to think this now, but at the end of the 1980s there was no bigger star in the pop sky than Bobby Brown: Don’t Be Cruel sold over seven million copies in the United States alone. He was dating pop princess Whitney Houston (they got married in ‘92). He appeared in Ghostbusters II, sparking excitement over a burgeoning acting career. He even made New Edition a big name once again simply by being part of a rumor that he was going to rejoin the group.

Only one problem Bobby Brown couldn’t stop “being Bobby Brown.” And what more and more people would learn over time was that “being Bobby Brown” meant being a complete fucking idiot:

• When Brown defiantly rapped “Bobby Brown was good to go solo” in the 1989 remix of his top-ten hit “Every Little Step,” he neglected to mention that it really wasn’t his choice: Brown got voted out of New Edition by the other members in early ‘86 because he was giving them a bad image. Specifically, he wouldn’t stop simulating intercourse onstage at their concerts. Solo success only emboldened Brown in this area: while appearing as the musical guest on Saturday Night Live in 1992 to promote Don’t Be Cruel’s follow-up, simply titled Bobby, Brown and two backup dancers spent what seemed like a good 30 seconds of their dance breakdown dry humping the floor. It’s a tradition that Brown proudly carries on to this day, as confirmed by this concert review from Australia’s The Age newspaper last July: “At a very nineties venue in Melbourne last night, a very nineties star arrived to show his diminished legion of fans he still had it. Just what that was is unclear, but one thing’s for sure he had me in fits of laughter. Who knew watching a former rapper, who’s pushing 40, hump the mike stand, the floor and the air would have such entertainment value?”

• Brown finally rejoined New Edition for 1996’s Home Again and headed out on tour with them. The result was, as I believe the French call it, une piece du merde. Brown left the tour halfway through its scheduled route, partly because of complaints from other members of the group about his well-established humping techniques and for extending his solo sets longer than originally planned. Brown was also put off by the fact that, at least in his own mind, he was a still a solo star. As he explained it — I’m paraphrasing — “I can make 40K a night by myself. Why should I come out here and split that with five other guys?” Reality wouldn’t get in the way of his actual artistic skills, either, as Brown proceeded to fire producers like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis from his recording sessions, and write and produce his next — and, to date, last — solo album, 1997’s Forever, all by himself. This tank job led to the past decade of Bobby Brown, best known for drug addiction, divorce, and reality TV.

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When Good Albums Happen to Bad People: Diana Ross, “Diana”

Berry Gordy is a powerful man. Not only did he found Motown Records, building a musical empire that allowed blacks to crossover into what had pretty much been a white-controlled music industry, but almost as amazing, he was able to convince a young Diana Ross that her crap doesn’t stink, and she has not deviated from that belief one iota over the past 45 or so years. In an industry of big egos, the one belonging to Miss Ross (remember, she must be addressed as such or you will be thrown out — and don’t you dare look her in the eyes!) is likely the biggest, and she has wielded it to not only obtain her huge success, but to build herself into a prick so immense that it would make porn stars gasp. Here are but a few examples of Miss Ross in action:

• While neither the best singer nor most attractive member of the Supremes, Ross did have one important thing up her sleeve, namely, Mr. Gordy’s penis. After unsuccessfully pursuing Smokey Robinson, Ross set her sights on (the married and 15 years older) Gordy. As the mistress of Motown’s founder, she was able to gain full power over the group, becoming its lead singer, getting its name changed to Diana Ross & the Supremes, and upstaging the other members, eventually leaving and employing the full power of the Motown promotional machine behind her solo career, while the Supremes were left to sputter out slowly over the course of the ’70s. Ross, meanwhile, ended up bearing Gordy’s child in 1971, but did not publicly acknowledge who the real father was for 22 years, until she released and was promoting her autobiography (which actually didn’t mention who the father was, either).

• Not only did she upstage the other Supremes throughout their career, she upstaged former Supreme Florence Ballard at Ballard’s own funeral. She went up to the front of the church during the service, grabbed the mike, and announced that she and Mary Wilson were going to lead a silent prayer. Wilson at the time was in a back pew and had no idea what was going on.

• In 1983, she agreed to do a one-off Supremes reunion with Wilson and Cindy Birdsong (Ballard’s replacement in the group) for the Motown 25 TV special. But Ross said she would only do one song instead of the requested four, and refused to practice for it. She also wanted the other two women behind her throughout the song, and when Wilson, who wasn’t informed of Ross’ demand, tried to step forward during the performance, Ross shoved her (this part was cut out of the final broadcast).

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