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Quintessence of Old Wave (5 of ??)
I've observed before that Kate Bush - now a national treasure, hip reference point, influence on a whole 21st Century phalanx of fe...
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Okay, let's see how things had shifted, in terms of the canon, slightly more than a decade after the 1974 appraisal by the critics of t... -
Onto the third installment of this series - the NME 's list of the Greatest Albums of All Time, published on October 2 1993. Here, it... -
I have written before about the Drops Away Syndrome... that thing where artists seem supremely relevant and core-canonic at a particular mo...
1. I would love to know the exact circumstances and intended purpose of that RCA Jefferson Airplane ad/statement. Damage control for a mouthy interview? Misguided credibility boosting?
ReplyDelete2. You do get a sense of how enmeshed underground comics were during this time, both in mildly interesting ways (that Atlantic MC5 ad) and not (that Birth Control cover, which is repulsive on every possible level, and a good example of a non-English-speaking group stumbling into some deeply uncomfortable territory by misguided enthusiasm)
3. That Peel's Festive 50 is amazing - Beefheart directly above Zep and 'Free Bird', Wild Man Fisher and Matching Mole appearing at all - as is the 'Progressives' compilation lineup.
It's a very odd ad, because it makes the group seem powerless and pushed around by the record company - which undermines their underground cred I should have thought. It's not like the Clash doing "Complete Control", where they at least manage to poke the record company in the eye even if they lost the battle of whatever that single was they didn't want releasing but was.
DeleteNot just the Festive 50 - Beefheart actually had two albums in the proper charts in the UK, at the cusp of the Sixties into Seventies - Trout Mask Replica got to #21 and Lick My Decals Off was #20. Peel's incessant support on Top Gear no doubt had something to do with that.
Haha that RCA / Airplane ad is amazing. I kept expecting some clever copywriting twist, but no. It is exactly what it looks like.
ReplyDeleteIt's not even promoting a particular release as far as I can see!
DeleteNow that I think about it, my first instinct - passive aggressive response to public complaint from one or more band members - is probably the correct one.
DeleteIf I had to guess, I think this was triggered by the six-month gap between recording Volunteers and releasing it because of the f-bombs and general political shit-throwing, which was only resolved when the band pointed out that RCA had already released an album - the Hair cast recording - with both those things. (They still refused to print it on the liner notes, which led to the non-sequitur minced oath 'up against the wall, fred')
RCA was one of the most conservative labels in general, and they had trouble handling more than one left-of-center artist at a tine (Airplane in late 60s/early 70s, Bowie taking over for them until the early 80s) By giving the former a vanity label and a freer hand, at least it paid off for them when they transmogrified into J. Starship and related offshoots - Bowie was so irritated with them for (in his view) underpromoting him in the US that he stuck them with the Baal EP as the last release on his contract, then immediately signed with EMI and released Let's Dance the next year.
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