Now here is an album! I know this album associates itself with one of my largest pet peeves, which is that greatest hits albums should not be allowed on any “Greatest of All Time” list. It really is a cop out. Of course, you can make a great album if you compile a collection of hits over an extended period of time, but it does not seem fair to put something like that up against, let’s say, Sgt. Pepper’s. Right? Right. But here’s my argument, at least in this case: I believe older albums might get a pass due to the fact that full albums were rarely released. Instead, music was, more often than not, distributed by singles.
That being said, what a great collection of songs. I am a little partial to Ben E. King, but it amazes me that even with all the changes that The Drifters saw over the course of their career that they were able to create such lasting and memorable tracks. I know the naysayer would argue that this feat is less spectacular, because The Drifters were a manufactured hit machine. To those people, I would say, “Kick dirt.” C’mon. “Under the Boardwalk?” “This Magic Moment?” “There Goes My Baby?” “Save the Last Dance For Me?” “On Broadway?” Get the point? Classics. Phenomenal classics that I would dare anyone, even if you are not a music buff, not to know the words to. I found myself belting them out in true Ben E. King fashion while driving around. I couldn’t stop. There is just something about the simple greatness of these tracks.
By the way, Rolling Stone also included three of these tracks in their 500 Greatest Songs of All Time: "Under the Boardwalk" (#487), "There Goes My Baby" (#193), and "Up On the Roof" (#116).
Unfortunately, there’s not much else I can say, because these songs are, in fact, simple. And once again, it is a greatest hits album, so one already knows what they are getting into before they start it up. Wonderful album.
James Taylor and Carole King giving it a go. And this guy...not sure who he is.
-d.
There is no group that represents early R&B as well as The Drifters. The arrangements, the phenomenal vocals, simple love songs, it’s all here. They benefited from having some excellent songwriters providing for them. From Carole King to Ben E. King, every name in 50’s and 60’s music had a hand in a Drifter’s hit. Since they were on top during the singles era I won’t complain about another greatest hits collection. Actually, I’d suggest skipping this one and going with the two disc Definitive Collection. There are just so many classics that deserve inclusion.
The best way to explain The Drifters is to say that after listening to this I want to go buy an old Impala or Skylark and drive about 12 miles an hour with this blasting. This is classic golden age pop, evoking the brylcreem coated days of bowling shirts and wingtips. A further reminder that I missed the greatest eras in music. How many girls were felt up for the first time at a "This Magic Moment" themed prom? I know I’ve been at several wedding receptions where "Some Kind of Wonderful" stole the night. Every note of these songs was written to last.
One thing that still amazes me is the sound. This was recorded between 1959 and 1964. If you listen to most recordings from the time, the instruments are a compressed mash up of indistinct reverb. But here, every player can be heard clearly. I can make out the bassline (unheard of on many older singles) and pick out the individual strings and horns. This is simply astounding. You can tell the vocals were generally one-offs, with the occasional singer overreaching or jumping his cue. But it just adds to the character. Some of these songs have 4 or 5 part harmonies, and they would have laughed you out the door if you showed them auto-tune.
I love Ben E. King, but Johnny Moore really dominates this collection. He runs over the better part of two octaves on "Under The Boardwalk," and floats some beautiful notes over it’s sister song, "I’ve Got Sand In My Shoes." It’s a shame that in the digital age we are losing the nuances of performances like these. It’s the inflection, the slight yodel between notes, the effortless jumps to falsetto and barreling drops to basso profundo. It’s all lost right now, and I hope with the growing scores of independent artists working from their homes that some of them turn off the computer and go back to singing it until its perfect.
I’m taking cheap shots at an unrelated technology, but it’s easy to do when you have music like this gearing you up. I really can’t stress how much you need this in your own collection. Whether to remember a bygone age, or to learn how an artist works, or just to enjoy some fantastic music. The Drifters may have been a revolving door of studio musicians simply doing a days work, but damn, they did it so good.
Watch this tv performance of Saturday Night At The Movies and wait for Johnny Moore to run out of fucks to give about lipsynching. Hint: it doesn’t take long.
I looked forward to this album for a few reasons. One, being that it was one of the albums during the “grunge” era that I completely missed. Two, being the influence (although disputed) Kurt Cobain must have had on Miss Courtney’s critically acclaimed album. Three, being that I love a good rock album, especially if it is raw and emotional. The problem here is that, while one could argue for the album’s rawness and emotional construction, the album is just an ode to Love’s bullshit.
The one glaring exception being “Doll Parts,” which even Love doesn’t understand how a three-chord song has held people’s interest, Hole’s Live Through This is just an album of noise and bitching; neither of which are done well. Don’t get me wrong, I love noise. I even love bitching, but I do not love Courtney Love it turns out after listening to this album. I wanted to like this album. I really wanted to, but in the end found myself trying to give this album more credit than it ultimately deserves. You can disagree and throw all the positive reviews this album has garnered throughout the years at me. Go ahead, you’re not showing me anything new. I read them while trying to understand the fascination some people have with this album. I don’t care about her criticisms about stardom or her experiences with it, because, honestly, others have said it better. You can argue with me about Cobain’s influence (supposedly) and how his contribution adds to the album’s mystique, greatness, credibility, whatever, but the sad truth is that there is enough of Cobain to make this album great. In fact, if news were to surface that Cobain wrote the entire album and Love had nothing to do with it, I would deny it. I would deny it unabashedly and whole-heartedly. If after all my denials and arguments had been expressed and I found this unfortunately to be the truth, I would lose a great deal of the overwhelming respect I have towards Cobain as an artist.
I honestly don’t want to talk about this album anymore. It’s not awful. It just isn’t great. Thus, it shouldn’t qualify for this list. Again, no matter how many times I tried to listen to it, I was not struck with any sort of overwhelming sense of anything. Instead, it was just 12 tracks of mediocrity. There, I said it.
Also, for the record, I don’t believe Love had anything to do with Cobain’s death, but I do think she is an idiot. Case in point. And again.
-d.
I was 14 when Live Through This came out. I remember watching the video for Doll Parts on 120 Minutes. I never quite got it. Still don’t, for that matter. The whole package is just so formulated. Each song comes across as a b-side from one of Courtney Love’s muses groups. While famously marrying Kurt Cobain, who is rumored to have written much of the lyrical content, she also dated Billy Corgan, who has admitted to writing or playing many of the instrumental parts. Neither gave her their best material, and her lack of charisma (and voice) kept Hole from ever achieving a fraction of the artistic merit that went to the two men in her life.
I’ve tried to give this my best. I came in with fresh ears, having not heard these songs in years. Still, every judgment I had seventeen years ago seems valid today. The guitars lack the requisite energy of the raucous punk they were trying to evoke. The drums have no snap and never find the rhythm to carry out double time and blast beats. But the vocals…..Oh lord the vocals. I understand that Love is emulating the British post-punk singers of the 80’s, and that requires a certain amount of stretching the pitch or speaking rather than singing. But, damn it, know your limits! I can’t tell if this is an example of a lazy performance or just the most oblivious case of overreaching ever put to vinyl.
Nothing else ever happens. The whole mess is just a bunch of pathetic tries at being someone you’re not. Love could never really be Kurt, so instead she settled on being the Nancy to his Sid. It’s a more fitting comparison than she probably ever realized. A wannabe former stripper latches on to as many major counterculture figures as she can, eventually finding the one who is so conflicted he becomes too weak to see through her. Except in the latter case, the man that was lost was a musical master.
I don’t know if the other members of Hole exemplify “poser” to the same extent, but let’s be honest, the story of Hole is the story of Courtney Love. Everything else there is superfluous. Maybe I am letting my opinion of one member shade my view of the entire group after all. But, then again, isn’t that sort of the point? This is such a self absorbed cry of “Look at me! I’m different! You wouldn’t understand…” that it practically defines the modern hipster. If she were 20 years younger she’d be drinking PBR’s at Bodega and calling Animal Collective a bunch of sellouts. Lame.
Instead of a cover, here’s something that pretty much wraps up my feelings at the end of the album.
