Right up my street
Marcus Berkmann
If popmusic is in permanent decline — and I have a feeling that that's one of its main functions — then so, inevitably, are music magazines. It's only residual brand loyalty, combined with what anthropologists might call 'direct-debit inertia', that keeps me subscribing to Q, despite its relentless pursuit of young readers and the ghastly bands they all like. (The free CDs that occasionally pop out of the magazine used to contain quite an adventurous range of music. Now it's all guitar rock: no light, only shade.) Still, we all have to accept that tastes change, and that ours may struggle to keep up. Once, in pop culture terms, we might have been Paula Radcliffe; now we are the marathon run
ners who dress as chickens. It is the way of things.
But even Q still has some good ideas occasionally. In the current issue, hidden between an interview with the Beastie Boys (amazingly still alive) and this month's dismal list (the 100 Most Powerful People In Music — 21 pages of solid bilge), is an absolutely corking little feature, so wholly up my street it isn't even mentioned in the contents. 'So Wrong They're Right', the headline screams. 'The 20 Uncool Albums You Should Own'. I'm almost embarrassed to say that I have only eight of them. Billy Joel's The Stranger — a career-defining album that he never came close to emulating. ZZ Top's Eliminator — the one with 'Sharp Dressed Man' and 'Gimme All Your Erwin". The Bee Gees' Spirits Having Flown — their first recording after Saturday Night Fever, and an inspired choice. Electric Light Orchestra's Out Of The Blue, of which I have written here maybe once too often already. It's notable that, of the 20, only two date from the past 15 years, Maybe fashion has been more rigid in recent years, or maybe the best overlooked albums do tend to be a few decades old. The Eagles' Desperado — as the moustaches on the cover suggest, this was first released 31 years ago. What all these albums have in common is that they sold in trillions, despite lashings of critical disdain. How can anyone be too cool for Travis's The Man Who? And even the aggressively tone-deaf and two-left-footed should own a copy of Abba's Super Trouper.
It could so easily have been the 100 Uncool Albums You Should Own, and included like's Deceptive Bends and at least three albums by Supertramp. An even better idea, though, is tucked away in the corner of the spread. 'But It's Really Avant-Garde: cool records no one really listens to,' Oh yes, now we're talking. Q can come up with only five, but I know two of them well. Captain Beefheares Trout Mask Replica (1969) is described as 'a hotchpotch of random musical snippets with a growly man singing out of tune on top'. This sentence alone may justify my subscription to the magazine. And Lambchop's Is A Woman (2002), which I have tried so hard to like, which so many of us have worked at without gleaning anything from it at all, is another superb selection. For an hour or so it noodles away in the background, its many equally quiet and tuneless songs all sounding exactly the same. It's almost courageously dull.
Cool records no one really listens to: this is the sort of idea that sends you back to your own record collection, possibly at a sprint. John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band immediately leaps out at me. I have owned this for a quarter of a century, and played it maybe three times. It's hugely influential, vastly significant — and absolutely bloody awful. But being a massive pseud, I still have it on my shelf, as it's the sort of thing rock fans of a certain age like to have. Among more recent material I would nominate the collected works of The Beta Band. roughly two thirds of Elvis Costello's albums and everything by New Order, other than 'Blue Monday'. (How many albums of theirs did I buy? How many did I ever play?) I know The Doors aren't cool any more, but they used to be, despite Jim Morrison's non-voice and the rest of the band's non-tunes. Have I mentioned P.J. Harvey? Or R.E.M.'s last halfdozen albums?
But I'm sure you have a few ideas of your own. Cool records no one really listens to: send me your nominations at marcus@berkmannl.demon.co.uk, and for someone there will be a small prize (not John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band).
Previous page
