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ivan@stellysee.de
| From | garymaher@juno.com |
| Subject | Re: What was going on in the '70s? |
| Date | Mon, 27 Oct 2003 01:50:44 -0500 |
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On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 19:00:09 -0500 audities-owner@smoe.org writes:
> I wish I still had my Rolling Stone Red Book -- but I'm guessing that
some
> of the stuff they were going ape for was full of pretension or dull as
dirt.
I hope nobody made their purchasing decisions based solely on the first
two Rolling Stone Record Guides!
An example from the Red one:
"The Zombies
Time of the Zombies (**)
During the British Invasion, the Zombies hit with an ethereal love song,
"Tell Her No," which spawned Rod Argent's career. In the late Sixties,
after a long hiatus, the group came up with "Time of the Season," the
keynote of this mediocre comeback effort. "Tell Her No" was on Parrot,
and it's the one to have. - DM [Dave Marsh]"
Just about the only "accuracy" in that whole review is that Tell Her No
was on Parrot, and that it was a hit. But it didn't spawn Rod's career
(that was She's Not There), there was no hiatus whatsoever, and "Time of"
was a 2 record comp with singles, unreleased tracks and all of O&O
(hardly a comeback effort). At least 2 US hit singles are ignored. And
this guy's supposed to be an expert rock critic? I know they were all
out of print in 1978, but c'mon!
Better check the Blue:
"The Zombies
Time of the Zombies (**)
Early Days (***)
Early Days incorporates the band's original incarnation as one of the
artier British Invasion groups, courtesy of the relatively spooky hit,
"Tell Her No," which sparked the career of Rod Argent. Time of the
Zombies sports an almost-all-new group (except for Argent) who hit in the
States with "Time of the Season." This version of the group also
launched Colin Blunstone. Both bands are better -- if less typically --
represented by their hit singles, available on any number of multi-artist
anthologies superior to these collections. - DM [Dave Marsh]"
No better. OK, "Time of" did include a few songs (one side out of four)
which were finished by Rod and others after the Zombies split. But all
of them (I think) were made more-or-less finished versions recorded by
the actual group. In any event, Time of the Season was on the O&O
portion of "Time of", so was of course the actual band. And the second
"version" of the group did not launch Colin -- he was there from the
start.
Fortunately, I learned early on that these books were most useful for
deciding which releases of a particular band to try first, rather than
choosing between bands. So those shoddily written reviews didn't deter
me from picking up Time of the Zombies at the time.
Oddly, most of the Doors' records have 4 or 5 stars in the Red, but only
2 or 3 in the Blue.
No Queen record in the Blue with more than 2 stars. Meanwhile,
"Thriller" gets five stars. I'd rather listen to The Shaggs, who earned
the dreadful square: "Worthless". Poor Foot Foot.
g
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