Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Middle Age Lament '15


When do you stop buying the latest record from one of your favourite artists? I'm wondering if there's a helpful checklist or flow chart that I can follow to determine when it really is time to call it a day, remember the good times and have an amicable parting of the ways.

The question has been prompted by the news that Alice Cooper is about to release a covers album of songs by his peers from the 60s and 70s. Honestly, I don't like the sound of it. Covers albums tend to be the ignored stepchildren of artists' discographies, so why should this one be any different? To make things worse, it's got "special guests". Uh-oh.

The problem is that Alice and I go back a long way, about 30 years in fact. A long time that, one which has seen 5 Prime Ministers, 8 World Cups, 5 US Presidents and 256 Spurs managers. I've been listening to Alice longer than the guy from Smokie was living next door to him.

I must have over 30 Alice Cooper records. I've definitely got all the studio albums, this despite the fact that he's only made two really good ones since the 1970s: 1983's "Da Da" and 2003's "The Eyes of Alice Cooper". Having said that, there are surprisingly few clunkers in the catalogue: 1987's "Raise Your Fist and Yell" definitely qualifies: a shrill, Heavy Metal album which manages to contain music even worse than both its title and cover, while 2001's "Dragontown" and 2008's "Along Came a Spider" aren't much fun either. On the whole though, he's managed to keep going by constructing a discography using competent mediocrity as the primary raw material. And I've kept buying them.

Believe it or not, the music is worse than the cover.
Believe it or not, the music is worse than the cover.
But recently he's been testing my patience, with live album after live album recorded with the same band playing the same songs. I've stopped buying them and I really think I should do the same with the studio albums as well. At heart I realise that this is an internal struggle: do I let my irrational record collector side override my logical, decision-making side? Now, I've broken ties before; I've never felt any compulsion to own a Black Sabbath record that doesn't have Ozzy or Dio on it, and I gave up with Queen after "Made in Heaven". It feels like it's time to say goodbye here too.

What about you? I can't be alone here. How many long time Simple Minds fans found themselves in HMV staring at the cover of "Street Fighting Years" and thinking "Do I really need this?" John Peel stopped playing T. Rex records after realising that if "Hot Love" and "Get it On" had been recorded by other artists he wouldn't have been playing them. Ever changed your Facebook status with an artist?

8 comments:

  1. I hear your lament (see what I did there?) and can answer your question quite easily. You should've baled in '74. '75 at a push. Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan too, but these days his live shows are nothing more than tired pantomimes and his new records are as exciting as watching paint dry. Maybe he should make more TV commercials with Ronnie Corbett - the last time he made me sit up and take notice.

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    1. As a long time fan I'd love to jump up and shout "Why You, I Oughta..", but deep down I'm struggling to really find the facts to contradict you. I think his trick has been to not have had a "Hot Space" or "Saved" moment when fans could have put their hands up and said "Sorry! This wasn't part of the deal! Ciao!". He's too clever (and well-managed) to have done that.

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  2. First Alice Cooper album was Greatest Hits (the 1974 album) - bought in 1986 for 50p at a second-hand shop and primarily for "Schools Out". Pretty soon I had the bulk of the Golden Years catalogue. I have difficulty going beyond 1980, and rarely listen to any AC product post-Flush The Fashion.

    I ducked out of Iron Maiden after Fear Of The Dark, but returned with Final Frontier (still don't know why I went and bought the Blaze Bayley stuff though? just wanted the whole catalogue I suppose).
    Metallica remain unrepresented after The Black Album (which I only bought when it was 5 years old) and the Marillion collection only goes to Seasons End (bar a free sampler of later stuff I got from marillion.com).
    I thinks its an unconsious decision sometimes - a favoured band member leaves and the band never sound the same again (in your ears at least), or maybe you just move on and find something new.
    The Alice Cooper covers album sounds a bit worrying though - interesting in a car crash sort of way, but not one to be sought out, bought and cherished.

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    1. I think 1980 was a good time to jump off with Alice. There was big change in direction, image and quality after From the Inside. One of the intersting things about his career is that he was on Warner Bros until 1983, a good ten years after Billion Dollar Babies, and 5 years after he had any real hits. The record company couldn't have made any real money on his last four albums on that label (Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin & Da Da) yet they kept on releasing them. The idea of a record company as a ruthless business seems a bit strange when you consider that.

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    2. My Marillion collection ended at Clutching at Straws. This coincided not only with Fish leaving but with me leaving home to go to college and meeting a very different crowd of people with very different tastes. I listened to some of the Fish Marillion stuff a few months ago and was surprised at how 80s the music sounds. At the time, I thought it was a throwback.

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  3. Rush.
    Just at the point I was getting into them - 88/89 - they were releasing some true stinkers (Hold Your Fire, Presto (which has an appalling cover too)). I couldn't figure how this could be the same band who were on 2112, All the World's a Stage, A Farewell to Kings, Permanent Waves, Moving Pictures. With hindsight I realise now that they needed to move on for themselves. Problem was that each release in the 90s was met with reviews saying "Yes, Alex Lifeson has found his amp again!" Well no he hadn't. Roll the Bones, Counterparts and Test for Echo are all merely okay.
    But for me, at least, their is a happy ending; after their enforced lay off they came back with a stormer in Vapour Trails, improved on it with Snakes and Arrows while the last album was by a mile their best since Moving Pictures. Problem is , they're making noises that might be their last.

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    1. With Rush, I got off the good ship Cygnus in 1985. I just didn't like Big Money and didn't like the look of Power Windows, which looked like a Howard Jones album. I didn't get anything after 1985 until your good self suggested Vapour Trails to me a few years back.

      I've filled in the gaps since then. Power Windows leaves me cold but I'm quite fond of Hold Your Fire, oddly enough. However, the records between Hold your Fire and Vapour Trails all sound the same to me. They're professional, well-executed, and a bit dull. And I don't expect Rush to be dull.

      I still think Vapour Trails is the best of the recent stuff, though I'm buggered if i can tell the difference between the original and the remixed versions.

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  4. Ah well, amongst the Rush fansites (I know, please don't hate me. And I did make some friends) Vapour Trails and the audio clipping are the cause of much discussion and debate. One fan even going on to do his own remix about ten years ago which he made available *taps nose*. It sounds okay in its original form to me, but then I'm not much of an audiophile,.

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