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| From | Not Lame <popmusic@notlame.com> |
| Subject | Thoughts on Badfinger |
| Date | Fri, 30 Jan 2004 09:04:27 -0700 |
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Posting this random thought by a guy named Bob Lefetz, who is an industry
pundit/consultant that does some of the most thought provoking rants on the
music industry for industry dudes and dude-ettes......quite an interesting
guy.
Anyway, this would be of interest to a good lot of folks here, me
thinks....i've edited it a bit as he goes off the interest of this list with
some personal anecdotes(and it's an already long post), fyi.
Peace,
Bruce
@ Not Lame
From Bob Lefetz off of the Lefetz Letter:
I heard "Day After Day" on the radio today.
The dial was set to the Loft. Mike Marrone was playing this alternative
version of "Carry On" by Stephen Stills. I'd love to have him e-mail it to
me,
but for some fakokta reason it's against the law.
Speaking of breaking the law, do you know that XM can't have all day artist
festivals without getting a WAIVER from the artist/label/copyright holder?
That's part of their license. That you can't play a certain number of
tracks by
the same artist in a row. How fucked up is THAT! The people who wrote THAT
provision must be living in the early seventies, when labels were fearful of
stations playing complete album sides and having their audience TAPE THEM!
Meanwhile, as I write this, you can freely download the whole damn album and
play
it to your heart's content. Oh yeah, the RIAA wants to snuff that too. Jet
you back to the nineties when the CD ruled. Make you pay a buck a track.
God,
these guys must REALLY hate the future. Sell the people ALL the music wh
enever they want it and then all these restrictions are revealed to be the
bullshit they ARE!
ANYWAY, whatever came on next didn't appeal to me so I split for Top Tracks.
Where I heard "Rock Me On The Water".
"Oh, people look around you
Designs are everywhere"
This is exactly when this album came out thirty two years ago. The dead of
winter. I used to play it on gray winter days. SO much that this song, the
first one I became enamored of, developed a skip. Which I still anticipate,
even though we've been living in the skipless CD era for twenty years.
And I'm reminiscing about '72 when I hear that slide guitar figure and that
resigned vocal...
"I remember finding out about you"
God, he SINGS it like he feels it. Unlike the American Idols, who might as
well be singing the phone book.
Badfinger got no respect. We didn't think they DESERVED IT!
Their first album had a song written by Paul McCartney and it was labeled
after the movie within which the song was contained. REAL ARTISTS? Are you
KIDD
ING ME?
And on their own almost a year later, TRULY nobody cared. "No Dice" was as
stiff as they come. Even if it WAS on Apple.
Thirty years later, one has to reevaluate. "No Matter What" might be
Beatle-derivative, but it's great by ANYBODY'S standards.
Then, of course, there was the totally ignored "Without You".
Most people believe Harry Nilsson wrote "Without You".
And he did a great version, but it was a cover of the Badfinger track. With
that sorrow I was referring to in "Day After Day".
Do you think Mariah Carey knows that "Without You" was originally a
Badfinger
song?
No, she's just worried if her breasts implants are going to leak.
But the third Badfinger album had another hit, the above-referenced "Day
After Day".
Now you've got to know, by this time we knew the Beatles were never getting
back together. "All Things Must Pass" was considered genius. Lennon had
already cut "Imagine". And although "Band On The Run" was another year
away,
McCartney had hit it big with "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey". So, to hear
something
Beatle-influenced years later...
The BEATLES were no longer doing THE BEATLES! And the scene had moved on.
Now it was about prog-rock, art rock, there was a CLEAR DEMARCATION between
the
sixties and the seventies.
But suddenly, we had this throwback. As good as the heyday. Like a one
night stand with your summer camp girlfriend. She was as good as she ever
was,
BETTER! Age had only IMPROVED her.
But after that one evening, she was gone. Done. Badfinger made more
albums,
but never had another hit.
And "Straight Up" WAS NOT a classic album picked up by legions of new fans
with CD reissues in the eighties. Hell, the album wasn't released on CD
until
after the BEATLES' CDs came out, which was notoriously late.
As good as "Day After Day" was, Badfinger STILL had no credibility. They
were not seen as an album act like Santana or the Allmans or the Dead whose
work
you HAD to own. Hearing the single on the radio was good enough. You
didn't
want to venture your four bucks.
But some people did. And when you went to their dorm rooms and saw
"Straight
Up", you'd put it on. Just to hear "Day After Day".
But as the album played...yes, back then we might only want to have heard
one
track but we played the whole side, one became ENAMORED of "Straight Up".
The second side opened with "Suitcase", which had the feel of '66 Beatles,
updated. And there was the aptly named closer, "It's Over".
And enjoying this side, you'd flip the record over, and remark how great
"Money", "Baby Blue" and "Flying" were.
But I didn't get hooked on "Perfection" until I got the CD.
The mix is quiet, but rich. Not an aural assault, but a band in a sound
field, each player taking up his own space. It SOUNDS like the band footage
in
"Let It Be".
"There is no real perfection
There'll be no perfect day
Just love is our connection
The truth in what we say"
++++++++++++++
There's no way Badfinger ever believed "Perfection" would be a hit single.
Hell, singles don't start off with acoustic guitars. Not today, when
Jewel's
album is remade for Top Forty radio, or the seventies, when the AM band
tended
to be filled with mindless ditties.
Yes, all the action was over at the FM band. Where the album tracks lived.
The key was to get airplay THERE so fans would buy your entire statement,
play
the complete album over and over again, seeing what you had to say.
I've never listened to an entire Mariah Carey album. And I'll be happy if I
never hear her version of "Without You" ever again. And I never want to
talk
to her either. She's got nothing to say. Intimates of hers have told me
this, but I can tell by her lyrics. She's not contemplating life, she's
just
living it.
Whereas even this twentysomething woman in the California desert I know home
alone with her kid by a different father is pondering what it all means.
Oh,
not that she doesn't like to go out and party, it's just that there's got to
be something MORE to life.
She likes to shoot photographs.
Most people only want to BE in photographs. On the covers of magazines.
It's about the trappings, not the life. You lie in bed with Mariah Carey
all
night after doing it and what do you talk about?
"There's no good kind of killing
Just power taking life
It's all good blood that's spilling
To make a bigger knife"
Understanding, recognition of your identity, what's special about you, is
necessary to go forward, to live. Especially if you're an artist.
But these qualities eluded the members of Badfinger. They were caught up in
the Apple maelstrom. Which was part of the bigger music business maelstrom.
They tried to survive, move on without recognition, without money, but two
members couldn't. They didn't need guns or knives, they used rope. They
hung
themselves. They were just too sensitive for this rough and tumble world.
They
needed more connection, more understanding, more conversation.
But their work lives on. "Straight Up" is on Rhapsody. As well as "No
Dice". Hopefully, while looking for "Day After Day", people will discover
more of
the band's music.
They were trying to express themselves, make a statement, in an era when
that
was the entry fee, the key to the game.
But in the cacophony, except for a brief moment, they were ignored. They
had
conversation, but it didn't take them very far.
"Perfection" is not a brief song. It goes on for over five minutes. In an
era when you were allowed as much time as needed to make your statement.
The
fade-out goes on for a full minute. With that great acoustic guitar rhythm,
angelic background vocals and a wailing lead guitar. But, just before the
end
begins, before your mind is set adrift, over and over again, these words are
uttered:
"Successful conversation, will take you very far"
I don't feel that my conversations recently have been that successful. And
maybe that's why I'm not where I want to be.
But I have a dream. That I speak and people listen. Not in a President to
the country way, not in a general to his troops way, but in a two-way
exchange
kind of way.
And it works on paper. Or the Internet.
On the Internet, I lay out my side of the story.
And people tell me what they feel in return.
And although I don't know exactly where it will take me, and it's not quite
like regular life, it's pretty fulfilling. If I weren't expecting
perfection,
I'd say it's pretty damn great.
(by Bob Lefetz)
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