1974

                So 1974, not so hot a year.  ’73 was a step down from ’72, but still had a lot of bright spots.  By ’74, there are still some quite good albums, and some interesting things happening on the margins, but the overall sense I get is that it’s a year where a lot of things stagnated or started to decline.  If after listening to ’73, I was thinking the punks were overstating how bad the previous years were, now I start to see what they were talking about a little.  In part, this is because things are stagnating, but it’s also in part because a lot of the big names (Zeppelin, Floyd, Sabbath, Gaye, among others) sit this year out.

                Of course, a couple of stray songs in my collection remind me that my listening project, reflecting my own musical collection, is far from representative of what the average listener was going through.  Thanks to hindsight, I have a much easier time locating the bright spots that others missed, and I’m skipping over a lot of mainstream dross that I have no need or desire to obtain.  This I’m reminded of as “Hooked on a Feeling” and (especially) “Please Come to Boston for the Weekend” show up in my shuffling, songs I obtained either on soundtracks or ironically, and are really, really bad.  So glad for once that this project includes some big blind spots.

                Of course, as I alluded to above, the bright spots are getting fewer and farther between in ’74.  This is maybe most obvious in glam, which is dying as a scene this year.  Mott The Hoople put out their last album, and a couple of solid singles aside, it’s a considerable step down from their last two, leaning much more heavily on a retro-‘50s sound that just not as compelling as their more Stones-y earlier work.  Eno is still doing interesting stuff, but it’s increasingly abstracted from glam.  In a sense it reminds me of Zappa, insofar as it’s drifting off into its own idiosyncratic world, removed from the rest of what’s going on.  This, incidentally, is one of the reasons I haven’t talked much about Zappa, as he often doesn’t relate much to what else is going on.  Roxy kinda sound like Eno, but they’re drifting toward a more mainstream dance sound.  Not bad, though. 

Bowie is also getting artier, and incorporating a stronger soul influence.  The latter is especially clear on his until-recently out-of-print live album.  I guess Bowie deserves credit for a live album that doesn’t just sound like re-recordings of the studio cuts, but I’m not sure slathering the kind of smooth-jazz saxophone you hear on a grocery store PA over Ziggy Stardust tracks is a real step forward (and as I look at the liners, I discover that said sax is in fact played by yacht-rock maestro David Sanborn – so smooth, so bland).  Interestingly, the only song that benefits from this treatment is the oldest; “The Width of A Circle” from way back on Man Who Sold The World.  Curious that this got a release, while nothing from the Ziggy tour was released until years later. Bowie’s studio album this year is tagged as incorporating soul influences, but basically that just means it swings a bit more than his previous stuff.  This, in turn, makes him sound considerably more like the Rolling Stones, especially on “Rebel, Rebel,” a song some portion of my readership (who shall remain nameless) thought was the Rolling Stones when first they heard it. 

The Stones themselves, meanwhile, are sounding more glam this year, although they lean closer to T. Rex than Bowie, esp. on “It’s Only Rock & Roll (But I Like It)”.  It’s Only Rock & Roll (the album) isn’t quite a complete glam makeover, but they’re definitely incorporating more of the glam sound, in a circular bit of influence.  It also makes it clear that the Stones’ greatest weapon is their rhythm section, as that band could swing so much more naturally than pretty much any other British band ever, and better than most rock bands anyway.  Even as they enter their follower phase, the Stones still kick up a pretty good racket, at least.

                On the margins of glam, Queen are pretty interesting, sounding at times quite close to Mott, insofar as their rock is both harder than Bowie or T. Rex and cut with older styles (music hall for Queen, 50s rock for Mott).  ELO, who I’d previously also tagged as glam-prog, no longer really fit that bill, although I’m liking them better and better.  At this point, though, their orchestrated pop sound most recalls Wings, of any of their contemporaries.  Wings, for what it’s worth, only put out a single this year, but it’s one of their best (“Junior’s Farm”).

                Unlike glam, prog actually has a pretty good year this year.  Tull put out a pretty good album, returning to shorter-form songs with a distinct glam influence.  They haven’t “gone glam” or anything, and it’s not as glam sounding as the Stones, but I think of it as analogous to when 90s Brit bands like Blur & Oasis would incorporate electronica elements into their sound: it shows they’re aware of their contemporaries, but it’s not a wholesale reinvention.  It works on “Bungle In The Jungle,” at least.  The War Child album as a whole, though, is solid but unremarkable.

                The other big prog bands return to form by revamping their sound as well, or at least Yes and King Crimson do.  In both cases, you might call their shift more “metallic,” although in Crimson’s case it would mean “sounding more like Black Sabbath,” while for Yes it means “sounds more like metal on metal,” thanks to new keyboardist Patrick Moraz’s at-times harsh synth sound.  I understand why a lot of people hate on Relayer, since it’s a much meaner-sounding record than anything else in the Yes catalogue, but it’s probably my 3^rd favorite of their albums (after The Yes Album and Close To The Edge, but above the highly-uneven Fragile).  It also offers a good idea of why Tales didn’t work: every other Yes album to this point pushed their sound forward in some way, but Tales was Yes treading water, and that’s death to a band like this.  Relayer, on the other hand, shows not only a more aggressive sound, but also elements that recall Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis.  It’s probably their hardest-rocking album, and shows them once again shifting their sonic palette to great effect.  King Crimson, meanwhile, put out probably my favorite of their albums, although it’s one that for me coasts primarily on guitar tone.  Not that the songs aren’t solid, but Fripp has seemingly developed his variation on the Tony Iommi’s classic Master of Reality fuzz, and like that album, Red is practically a concept album about guitar tone.  Small wonder it was one of Kurt Cobain’s favorites.

                Finally, on the margins of prog, I just mentioned above that Zappa’s disconnect from the broader musical world means I seldom have cause to mention him, but it does sound to me like Apostrophe’ is a parody of concept albums & rock operas, and a pretty solid one, insofar as I’m fairly certain its long, rambling, incoherent story is deliberately so.  Of course, lyrics generally seem like something of an afterthought to Zappa, so who knows?

                Someone for whom lyrics are emphatically not an afterthought, however, is Bob Dylan, who releases his first proper studio album since 1970.  You’d never guess there was a 4 year gap between New Morning and Planet Waves, though, so close they are in sound.  Especially with the long gap, it can’t help but feel a little underwhelming.  Disappointing too for the Band, for whom Planet Waves is the first non-covers album since 1971’s Cahoots.  I suspect, given that it was the first non-soundtrack/outtake album from Dylan and non-covers album for the Band, that it was a touch overrated at the time.  Now, it’s probably my least favorite Dylan album since Times They Are A’Changing, not counting Dylan.  Pleasant enough, though, and I do like songs like “On A Night Like This” and “Forever Young,” but there’s nothing here as good as last year’s “Knocking On Heaven’s Door.”  Still, he’s already in ’74 laying down the studio tracks for his real return to form next year, the bootleg NYC sessions for which I’m listening to this year. 

                Two other major folk-rock singer-songwriters have very good years.  Richard Thompson, whose solo debut was good but slight, records what might be his greatest album.  If you haven’t heard I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight, and have any interest in folk-rock or 70s roots-rock, please seek this one out.  It’s a gem.  Great player, great songwriter, great singers.  Remarkably, Thompson manages to find a singer almost as good as Sandy Denny (his old Fairport singer) in new wife Linda Thompson.  Sonically, it’s quite close to Fairport, although it leans less toward straight purity, and roughs it up a bit with some electric energy.  Neil Young also does quite well this year, continuing his so-called “ditch trilogy” of angry, grungy albums.  On The Beach was the third recorded but second released, and while I like Time Fades Away just a hair more, that’s largely based on the ragged energy of the live record.  On The Beach probably has better songs overall, and certainly is a little more clear-eyed lyrically, if still wholly disgusted with the whole increasingly mellow LA folk-rock scene.  Both Young and Thompson manage to make much more compelling cases for the continued vitality of the genre as a whole, though – stronger than Dylan, at any rate.  Also, it’s fun to hear Neil Young’s answer song (“Walk On”) to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s answer song (“Sweet Home Alabama”) to Young’s own “Alabama” and “Southern Man.”  It’s like a hip-hop feud, only between a Canadian folkie and Southern rednecks.  Although I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Skynyrd make sure to put an ode to an old black bluesman (“Curtis Loew”) on the same album to underline the idea that they’re proud Southerners but not racists.  Overall, a step down from their debut, though, sounding much more conventionally boogieing, and stepping back from the big epics of last year.

                Elsewhere in the realm of hard rock, we’re missing a bunch of the big guns.  Both Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath sit out ’74.  The Who’s Odds ‘n Sods is just that, and as is the nature of these sort of things, contains some great stuff (“Pure & Easy), some interesting obscurities (“Postcard,” which recalls the whimsical side of Cream), & some weird stuff (I love their anti-smoking PSA, rejected by the American Cancer Society for being too dark).  It also has their most generic hit (“Long Live Rock”).  One thing I’m definitely struck by is that, while the Who were generally excellent in quality in the ‘70s, they were well below-average in terms of productivity.  There are only 2 more proper Who albums in the whole decade, a sharp contrast to most of their much more prolific peers.  Perhaps that’s why they were one of the first active groups to put out one of these outtakes comps.

Elsewhere in hard rock, Deep Purple is in the process of grinding to a halt.  New singers David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes (to become vocalists for Jimmy Page and Black Sabbath later on, respectively) rock credibly on greatest-hits tracks like “Burn” and “Stormbringer,” but the Stormbringer album itself is pretty rough going after the title track.  For some reason, Coverdale & Hughes try to turn Deep Purple into a roots-soul outfit, sounding closer to Traffic than anything in Purple’s prog or metal past.  Traffic is starting to sink in my estimation after this and last year’s Badger album, as I realize how much they, like Led Zeppelin are a great band but a horrible influence.  Blue Oyster Cult this year are out-Purpling Deep Purple in the organ-driven hard rock sound, at least, and with better lyrics to boot.  Secret Treaties is certainly my favorite BOC album, although my collection is smaller than it could be, sadly. 

Remarkably, though, they’re not even the best band out of Long Island this year:  Mountain is back!  I am a little surprised at just how excited I am to get Mountain back, after only a couple of years since their last one, but I just really love that fantastic fuzzy/heavy sound.  And it hasn’t changed at all.  The live album from this year is better than the live half of Flowers of Evil, but not a great change.  And Avalanche, their studio album, is only different insofar as it leans more on the heavier tracks than the mellower/folkier end of things.  Also, it’s got my 3^rd favorite “Satisfaction” cover (after Otis Redding and Devo).  Admittedly, they basically just turn it into a Mountain song, but as covered above, I love me that Mountain sound.  So I’m pretty sad that this is the end of the line for Mountain…

                Not a lot to report in the realm of soul.  It’s not degenerating like glam (not when songs as good as Al Green’s “Take Me To the River” (I used to think the Talking Heads did this better: I was wrong, and I apologize to Rev. Green) and albums as good as Stevie Wonder’s Fulfillingness’s First Finale come out), but it is kinda treading water.  Soul has always been a more evolutionary than revolutionary genre, but this year there’s not a lot of change from the last.  The same holds for reggae; some very good stuff (especially Marley’s Natty Dread), but largely just a continuation of what was happening last year. 

Funk, however, has a quite good year, esp. as Parliament is finally a going concern.  It’s too bad that glam is dying just as funk is really taking off, as I think there’s an argument that they’re very similar in a lot of ways.  Not musically, obviously, but in their emphasis on sci-fi/fantasy and freaky theatricality, there’s an easy line between Bowie and George Clinton to be drawn.  Incidentally, what I do notice musically is just how much Clinton took his essential sound from Sly & The Family Stone, who are very similar musically this year, if more paranoid and dark in tone than Clinton. 

                James Brown, meanwhile, is pursuing a kind of funk that’s fairly radically different from what Clinton’s up to, with much tighter arrangements that at times recall the big band jazz of an earlier era.  I begin to think that Soul On Top, Brown’s deliberate experiment in that style from 1970, may be a crucial one in explaining his development.  Songs like “Coldblooded” and “Papa Don’t Take No Mess” rock harder than the swing cats, but their horn charts don’t sound too far removed.  Also, if Brown sounds removed from the main trends in funk in 1974, he sounds like a stronger influence on the early-80s funk of Prince and Rick James than P-Funk or the rest of what’s happening in funk this year.  And Prince totally stole his yelp-y scream thing from James Brown.  Also, Brown’s reliance on vamps over the more sprawling sound of P-Funk sounds more like an influence on sample/loop based hip-hop (even if those loops would often be of P-Funk tracks).  Finally, I should note that I mentioned last time that the Stones on “Heartbreaker” sounded closer to Brown than a lot of what else was happening in funk.   Well, this year, “The Big Payback,” for me the apex of Brown’s funk years, reminds me of “Gimme Shelter,” if only in that it maintains a similar groove of sustained menace.  “Payback” is far more danceable, though, and a groove that I don’t want to end.

                I also want to include a last note on Steely Dan.  I guess they sound most like AM soft rock of anything else that’s going on, but they’re also showing a strong, strong jazz influence, covering Ellington and quoting Horace Silver.  Very clever, very catchy music.  So far, I like every Steely Dan album better than the last, I just don’t know where to slot them in.  Unlike Zappa, they don’t sound outside of time, but their sound is so much their own that it’s hard to compare them to much.  Eno maybe, in approach, if not in sound.  Also, the more sophisticated their music gets, the harder time I have juxtaposing the sounds on the record with the dirty hippies on the record jacket…

Song of the Year:  Gram Parsons – “$1000 Wedding.”  I almost gave this one to James Brown’s “The Big Payback,” but “$1000 Wedding” is an instant standard, and that sort of thing doesn’t come along every day.  Plus, while it’s been covered many, many times, I don’t think anyone did it better than Parsons.

Album of the Year:  Big Star – Radio City.  Kind of a surprise for me, as it’s not a record that screams greatness.  If it had come out 5 years earlier or later, when this style of pop-rock was more popular , it probably would have been lost in the shuffle (although paradoxically would have sold more copies).  But it’s really solid, with really good songs.  It’s nothing that the Byrds weren’t doing earlier (or R.E.M. would do later), but c. 1974, only Tom Petty was mining similar territory, and not half as well.  Neil Young, Yes, and Richard & Linda Thompson all deserve runner-up nominations, though. 

Artist Most Benefiting from Reevaluation:  Mountain.  I’ve covered above how unexpectedly excited I was for their return this year, but at this point I’m willing to say that I love Mountain more than their greatest influence Cream.  Their hit-to-miss ratio was much higher, but also a fatter sound and better singing, and a sound that is pretty close to my Platonic ideal of hard rock.  In no small part, the Black Keys are one of my favorite active groups because of the debt they owe Mountain.

Artist Most Diminished in Reevaluation:  Kraftwerk.  It turns out that not only did Neu! do the motorik sound earlier, but they did it better too, always sounding a little less predictable than their ex-bandmates.  It does make me wonder what they would have produced had they all stayed in one group. 

Album List

ABBA - Gold

Al Green - The Absolute Best

Big Star - Radio City

Billy Cobham – Total Eclipse

Blue Öyster Cult – Secret Treaties

Bob Dylan - Blood On The Tracks (New York Sessions)

Bob Dylan - Greatest Hits Volume 3

Bob Dylan - Live 1961-2000: Thirty-Nine Years of Great Concert Performances

Bob Dylan - Vol. 2 : Rare And Unreleased, 1963-1974

Bob Dylan - Vol. 3: Rare And Unreleased, 1974-1991

Bob Dylan & The Band – Planet Waves

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Legend

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Natty Dread

Brian Eno - Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy

Bruce Springsteen - Misc.

Charles Wright & The Watts 103rd Street Rhythm Band - Express Yourself: The Best Of Charles Wright

Chuck Brown - The Best Of Chuck Brown

Dave Brubeck - Ken Burns Jazz: Dave Brubeck

David Bowie – Aladdin Sane

David Bowie - Changesbowie

David Bowie – David Live

Deep Purple – Stormbringer

Deep Purple - The Very Best Of Deep Purple

Dennis Alcapone - Guns Don't Argue

Electric Light Orchestra - Strange Magic: The Best Of Electric Light Orchestra

Elton John - Greatest Hits 1970-2002

Frank Zappa - Apostrophe'

George Harrison - The Best Of George Harrison

Gram Parsons - Grievous Angel

James Brown - 20 All Time Greatest Hits!

James Brown - The Big Payback: 1971-1975

Jethro Tull - Original Masters

Jimmy Buffett - Songs You Know By Heart

Joni Mitchell - Hits

King Crimson - Red

Kraftwerk - Autobahn

Leonard Cohen - The Best Of

Lou Reed - Collections

Lynyrd Skynyrd - All-Time Greatest Hits

Marvin Gaye - Live

Merle Haggard - HAG: The Best Of Merle Haggard

Mott The Hoople - Greatest Hits

Mott The Hoople – Live

Mott The Hoople - The Hoople

Mountain – Avalanche

Mountain – Twin Peaks

Neil Young - Decade

Neil Young – On The Beach

Nick Drake - Way To Blue (An Introduction To Nick Drake)

Nick Lowe - Nutted By Reality

Parliament - Tear The Roof Off 1974-1980

Paul McCartney - Wingspan: Hits

Queen - Classic Queen

Queen - Greatest Hits

Richard & Linda Thompson - I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight

Richard & Linda Thompson - Wedding Songs

Ringo Starr - Photograph: The Very Best Of Ringo Starr

Rod Stewart & The Faces - Gold

Roxy Music - The Best Of Roxy Music

Rush - Chronicles

Sly & The Family Stone - The Essential Sly & The Family Stone

Steely Dan - A Decade of Steely Dan

Steely Dan – Pretzel Logic

Stevie Wonder - At The Close Of A Century

Stevie Wonder – Fulfillingness’s First Finale

The Kinks - Celluloid Heroes

The Rolling Stones - Forty Licks

The Rolling Stones – It’s Only Rock & Roll

The Staple Singers - City In The Sky

The Staple Singers - The Very Best Of The Staple Singers

The Who – Odds & Sods

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Playback V: Through The Cracks

V/A - Back In The Day Jamz

V/A - Children Of Nuggets II

V/A - Kill Bill, Vol. 1

V/A - Pure Funk

V/A - Reservoir Dogs

V/A - Samba Soul 70!

V/A - Trojan Dub Massive Chapter I

Van Morrison – It’s Too Late To Stop Now

Yes - Relayer