The American music industry has never been particularly interested in — or good at — pursuing slow, sustainable growth models. Americans in general are obsessed with speed, and that’s reflected in our rock folklore — from Elvis striking God’s perfect chord during his first Sun Studios take to Taylor Swift writing hit songs while she was still in high school, we love a fast, out-of-nowhere success story on the pop charts. There’s a whole world outside the spotlight, however, and even though it doesn’t seem to happen as often as it used to, the major labels have occasionally functioned as impatient and/or semi-unwilling incubators for artists who, for one reason or another, take a little extra time to achieve mainstream success.
Like, say, Kansas.
Needlepoint violin solos aside, pretty much everything about Kansas is slow. The first of the band’s many lineups formed in 1970, but it was 1974 before they got around to recording an album, which flopped, as did the two that followed. It wasn’t until their fourth album, 1976’s Leftoverture, that Kansas was able to claw a toehold in the marketplace — and by 1982, when original singer Steve Walsh took a hike and the band briefly morphed into a terrifying CCM/prog hybrid, they had already slid back into commercial irrelevancy. Kansas’ last major label release, In the Spirit of Things, came out in 1988, and their last overall studio effort, Somewhere to Elsewhere, was released almost ten years ago.
While contemporaries like Boston, Styx, and REO Speedwagon managed to retain various degrees of dignity during their commercial dotage, Kansas has given off a sad, flat-footed vibe for the last 25 years or so — Walsh’s departure kicked off an era of multiple breakups, grimy club tours, and long silences punctuated by bargain-priced archival live albums. During the mid ’90s, Kansas attempted a comeback with Freaks of Nature, an album recorded for Intersound, a label widely believed to be a Mafia tax shelter; three years later, they were recording live symphonic covers of their greatest hits for another shady indie outfit, River North. During an interview to promote 2002’s live CD/DVD project Device – Voice – Drum, drummer Phil Ehart admitted that the band had been dumped by not only its last label (prog champions Magna Carta), but its booking agent — a horribly galling admission for a band with evergreen AOR hits in a touring marketplace that always has room for everyone from Air Supply to whatever jiveass live package Alan Parsons happens to be peddling. (more…)
We, at the site, really do strive to bring the coolest stuff possible to the readers and I think you’d agree our commitment pays off. But sometimes things float through our transom that don’t make it to the site for one reason or another. Such was the case when your own, your very own Dirk McQuickly Jason Hare e-mailed some links to the staff. A friend of his transferred old cassettes recorded from radio broadcasts in the ’80s, complete with commercials, DJ banter and other ephemera, to MP3. Nerdlet that I am, I downloaded as many as I could and reveled in a little regressive therapy at maximum volume.
Then I recalled, “Wait a minute. I’m a notorious packrat! I might have a few tapes of my own!” I did, in fact. Recordings of the fabled WPLJ from 1980s New York actually existed in a tape box that had an inch of dust congealed atop it. I thought this would be a very cool addition to our little Internet menagerie, and it would have been – were it not for the fact I only bought the cheapest, crappy blanks back then.
Yes, friends, the tapes had stretched, warped, some even seized up into circular spools of utter uselessness, but all were rendered ruined by time. But that doesn’t stop a man on a mission, now does it? I decided to build the playlist back from the ground up, based on the information on the J-card. Also, this one particular tape was playable but it sounded horrible, warbly, drifting in azimuth alignment so that sound meandered from fuzzy and muddy to irritatingly sharp. (more…)
Editor’s note: This week’s mixtape has an inordinate amount of song edits. While the prog purists who prefer the full-length epics might take offense, we simply cannot post 12-or-so tunes at 13-plus minutes apiece (and two songs clocking in at a half hour each). We hope you’ll understand why we’ve done as we’ve done and then show your support to the bands below by buying their albums.
Before there was an Arnel Pineda (Steve Perry soundalike, currently fronting Journey), or a Benoit David (Jon Anderson soundalike, currently fronting Yes), or even a Chris Chan (Barry Manilow impersonator, currently playing casinos and corporate gigs), there was John Elefante, whose uncanny vocal resemblance to Steve Walsh landed him the lead singer gig in Kansas after Walsh flew the coop for a “solo career” (like when McLean Stevenson left M*A*S*H for “other roles”). Elefante’s run with the group was modest enough—one mediocre album each in ‘82 and ‘83—but yielded two awesome singles in “Play the Game Tonight” and “Fight Fire with Fire,” both of which remain in Kansas’ setlist to this day.
Somewhere between leaving Kansas in ‘84 and beginning an extensive producing and performing career as a Contemporary Christian artist, John and his brother Dino contributed a track, “Young and Innocent,” to the David Foster-helmed soundtrack of the Brat Pack movie St. Elmo’s Fire. It’s a shame, really, that a song that so majestically exemplifies the best of the power ballad arts was wasted on such a whiny, execrable piece of celluloid mush. That’s how it goes sometimes, though. Booga-booga-booga-ah-ah-ah!
For a moment, let’s accept “Young and Innocent” as a separate entity from the movie. A simple yet stately piano figure opens the song as Elefante glances around the ether:
There’s an echo in the wind.
Makes me wonder where I’ve been
All the years I’ve left behind
Faded pictures in my mind(more…)
We’re moving on to the 11th letter of the alphabet this week on Bottom Feeders, a look at all the great and miserable songs that charted no higher than #41 on the Billboard Hot 100 during the 1980s.
Johnny Average Band
“Ch Ch Cherie” — 1981, #53 (download)
Yeah, I know I just said we were beginning the 11th letter, K, but thanks to a snafu — I thought I wrote about the Johnny Average band last year when this series kicked off — we have to deal with the one J entry that I missed.
Frankly, I’m hoping you can provide some kind of insight into this one. I’ve read quite a few different things about the Johnny Average Band: One, I’ve heard this is really a group called the Falcons that was formed by producer and onetime David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson. But I’ve also read that Ronson doesn’t play on this particular track. I do know that Johnny Average was the stage name of the keyboard player, and “Ch Ch Cherie” features singer Nicole Wills on vocals.
I don’t believe Kajagoogoo has ever come up as a topic in this series before so I don’t know what the reaction will be when I claim these guys are total crap. I truly believe that Kajagoogoo are one of the luckiest bands of the decade. I can’t sit here and even remotely tell you that “Too Shy” despite its stupid lyrics isn’t catchy as hell, but the rest of their debut album White Feathers, including “Hang On Now” is slop. These guys were poised to rise like Duran Duran would soon do (the album was even produced by Nick Rhodes and Colin Thurston who was the Duran Duran producer at the time) but they forgot to actually write some songs. White Feathers is straight by-the-book new-wave, taking very few chances at all. And dumb titles like “Ooh To Be Ah” and “This Car is Fast” cemented their place as poor songwriters in my book. Singer Limahl was fired after this album and the ensuing two records without him (both by Kaja — no “googoo” suffix — in the U.S.) sucked even worse. Good for them that they are still making money off “Too Shy” but damn if that wasn’t just good luck rather than talent.
Bands like Rush and AC/DC wear as a badge of honor the fact that they’ve never written or performed a power ballad. I love them both, but they’re pussies. The power ballad is to rock and roll what Al Pacino in Scarface is to acting. The artist has little use for subtlety or restraint — emotion is laid bare, put forth in the most emotive manner possible. In power ballads, the tempo slows; the guitars come to the fore; the notes the singer sings echo and elongate for miles and miles. When done well, the result is beautiful in its pure, overblown glory, enabling the audience to say “hello” to the band’s leetle friend, usually with lighters held aloft.
Every two weeks or so, I will pay tribute to the finest examples of the genre. Together, we will find this death by power ballad to be an exquisite one, indeed. — RS
My vote for greatest rock and roll song of all time goes to the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” It’s got it all: its guitars are loud and its lyrics filthy, sung in broken English by a bunch of long-haired yet still balding German dudes with names like Klaus and Matthias. The album it came from, Love at First Sting, was chock full of likewise loud, enormous-sounding, German-accented rawk songs like “Big City Nights,” “I’m Leaving You,” and “Bad Boys Running Wild” (cuz the Scorps were not good boys; good boys would never do such a thing).
The same record also contained “Still Loving You,” one of the great power ballads of the ’80s — one you typically see on Volume 2 of the typical multi-disc set of Hard Rock Ballads” or “Metal Hits” or other bargain bin product. Rarely does it make the cut for the first volume, which is typically crowded with Whitesnake, Warrant, and Winger shit. More about them some other time.
“Still Loving You” is six and a half minutes of slow-building rock ballad pleading, the kind of groveling that guys only do when they’ve fucked up really bad. Really bad. Bad, as in you sleep with your girlfriend’s best friend, in the bed you share with your girlfriend, on your girlfriend’s side of the bed, using your girlfriend’s “toys” and her brand new candle from Bath and Body Works, and instead of cleaning up the sticky, smelly, waxy mess afterward, you just throw the comforter over it and leave your girlfriend a note, asking her to please throw the sheets in the wash when she gets a chance. That kind of bad. (more…)
These Chicago-bred emo pioneers have been gradually sanding down the rough edges of their sound for years — and with their Epic debut, a glossy sheen is officially all that remains. Longtime fans are already grousing about Agony & Irony, but the album’s FM-ready sound is already yielding dividends for the band: Alkaline Trio was featured on an episode of The Hills in May. That won’t be of much comfort to those pissed-off purists, but it should give a pretty big boost to the band members’ bank statements. By their next album, their transformation into the emo version of the Goo Goo Dolls should be complete; in the meantime, they should get a semi-credible hit or two out of Lit-esque tracks like “Love Love Kiss Kiss.” (MySpace)
Not James’ finest hour, to be certain — but it does contain his last major Top 40 hit, the Rocky IV soundtrack anthem “Living in America,” and it probably represents his last more or less consistent album. It’s hard to decide which is more surprising: That Gravity was out of print, or that Volcano — the imprint that once was Scotti Brothers — is still in business. Those Survivor and “Weird Al” Yankovic royalties must be more lucrative than anyone could have imagined…
One of Coltrane’s earliest albums gets the Prestige reissue treatment here — no bonus tracks, but it’s remastered, and considering that these sessions were recorded in 1957, the difference is probably noticeable, to say the least. Coltrane’s foils for Dakar are Cecil Payne, Pepper Adams, Mal Waldron, Doug Watkins, and Art Taylor — and though Adams and Waldron contribute some solid songs, this isn’t one of Coltrane’s essential releases (check out the way his solo trips and falls down a flight of stairs on “Witches’ Pit”). For completists and jazz fanatics only. (more…)
(1975)
(2001)
(2006)
(1999)
(1980)
(1986)
(1970)
(1989)
(1991)
(1984)
(2008)
(2005)
(1974)
Before there was an 
I don’t believe Kajagoogoo has ever come up as a topic in this series before so I don’t know what the reaction will be when I claim these guys are total crap. I truly believe that Kajagoogoo are one of the luckiest bands of the decade. I can’t sit here and even remotely tell you that “Too Shy” despite its stupid lyrics isn’t catchy as hell, but the rest of their debut album White Feathers, including “Hang On Now” is slop. These guys were poised to rise like Duran Duran would soon do (the album was even produced by Nick Rhodes and Colin Thurston who was the Duran Duran producer at the time) but they forgot to actually write some songs. White Feathers is straight by-the-book new-wave, taking very few chances at all. And dumb titles like “Ooh To Be Ah” and “This Car is Fast” cemented their place as poor songwriters in my book. Singer Limahl was fired after this album and the ensuing two records without him (both by Kaja — no “googoo” suffix — in the U.S.) sucked even worse. Good for them that they are still making money off “Too Shy” but damn if that wasn’t just good luck rather than talent.
My vote for greatest rock and roll song of all time goes to the Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane.” It’s got it all: its guitars are loud and its lyrics filthy, sung in broken English by a bunch of long-haired yet still balding German dudes with names like Klaus and Matthias. The album it came from, Love at First Sting, was chock full of likewise loud, enormous-sounding, German-accented rawk songs like “Big City Nights,” “I’m Leaving You,” and “Bad Boys Running Wild” (cuz the Scorps were not good boys; good boys would never do such a thing).
Alkaline Trio, Agony & Irony (Epic)