Entertainment For Lively Minds
The "Oh You Were So Close" "Ha'porth Of Tar" "Oh Four Faults Harvey!" Yellow Submarine Track that mars an Otherwise Classic LP
Posted by Gooseboot on 19 April 2010 - 9:25pm.
So Yellow Submarine on Revolver and, for me, "Sloop John B" on Pet Sounds. (Incidentally both tracks that might have found a decent berth on other works) They just queer the pitch for the perfect 10 out of 10 mark, that manage to murder their faultless darlings. So what are the notorious warts on the face of otherwise perfect pop pitches?
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OK Computer
could really do without 'Fitter Happier', I think. I'm sure it fits in with the concept, etc etc, but it seems so insubstantial compared to the amazing songs around it.
The Smiths fell foul of this twice, I think. Of their four 'proper' albums, I think 'Meat is Murder' is wrecked by 'I Want the One I Can't Have' and can't bear the fact that 'The Queen is Dead' finishes with 'Some Girls are Bigger than Others'...
Hmmm. Fifty percent sort-of agreed.
I'm not that keen on "I Want The One I Can't Have", but I think "Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" is a bloody marvellous way to end "The Queen Is Dead". As well as being oddly funny, I find it strangely moving - never been sure why. And it sort of punctures "There Is A Light..." while complementing it perfectly.
"There Is A Light..." would have been a really po-faced way to end the record, IMO. The Smiths' sense of humour is what sets them apart from the pack of miserablists, so I think it's kind of fitting that such a grumpily hilarious song closes their greatest album.
Marr would agree with you, though:
and yet...
I Want the One I Can't Have is one of my favourite Smiths tracks, it's certainly the reason I re-bought Meat is Murder when I scrapped the vinyl and moved to cds only.
Similarly - referring back to the original post. Whilst Yellow Submarine is the usual Beatles novelty tosh that stops me from liking them much, I really like Sloop John B and didn't realise I wasn't meant to. I think I've only heard Pet Sounds once and think it enlivened what sounded (in the circs - family get together,) a rather dull album.
Fitter Happier
Love it. Beautifully miserable in its own little way.
I've never really liked "Let Down" though. Always seems a bit boring on an otherwise staggering album, FH included.
Closed Groove
Last Track on Stiff Little Fingers otherwise faultless Inflammable Material
Jam - Never really got on with Trans Global Express (The Gift)
HJH - Maggie Mae (Let It Be)
Wholeheartedly agree with Yellow Submarine
Probably loads of others, but those are the obvious "I'll just skip this one" tracks
I'm not sure I agree
I rather like both tracks. Sloop John B adds a bit of toe-tapping action to counterbalance the rest of the album, I don't think it would the same without it.
I like Yellow Submarine for its sheer acid-frazzled silliness. The lyrics are no more trite than Taxman, and I prefer the melody to Georges gear-crunching 'I Want to Tell You'.
Oh dear
I rather like I Want To Tell You, actually. I don't think there's a single bad track there, though Yellow Submarine does push the envelope a bit...
Indeed
and the "gear crunch" (great description) is the best thing about it.
HJH?
sorry, I know I'm miles behind here but was does HJH stand for?
HJH =
Hey Jude Hitmakers
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/content/word-jargon-and-jokes-a-guide
The Hey Jude hitmakers AKA The Fabs
Not, as some people think, Barclay's brother Harvey James-Harvest.
What's wrong with Yellow Submarine?
Ask anyone under the age of ten and they'll probably tell you it's their favourite Beatles song. It's not easy writing something that catchy.
And without Sloop John B we would never have witnessed this...
(Not likely to be repeated this season).
Didn't say they were heinous
Didn't say they were heinous songs - just that they jar on the particular albums they inhabit.
Great albums emerging from the half-time break...
having not benefitted from the manager's team talk.
Never quite got my head around the way two of favourite 90s albums fall down in roughly the same place—and in pretty much the same way.
Just into the second side of ‘Automatic For The People’ is ‘Ignoreland’, an oddly recorded, utterly unsuitable, guitar-led disruption of an unusually beautiful LP. It seems to be dealing, in typically cryptic Stipey fashion, with politics of some sort.
Track 8 of ‘OK Computer’ is ‘Electioneering’, an oddly....same as above actually. ('Fitter Happier' at least has the courtesy to not be a song as such.)
Thankfully, both albums recover. But interviews with both bands pretty soon after their release showed most concerned to have serious doubts about the presence of these tracks. So why put the damn things on at all? And remember that the royalties issue isn’t much of an issue with either group.
(Without checking, I can’t be sure of this, but ‘Skin Feeling’ on the otherwise terrific ‘Together Alone’ performed a similarly unpleasant role . At least that can be put down to appeasing an unhappy band member.)
Skin Feeling's not brilliant, is it...
But Together Alone is one of my very favourite albums, and I can forgive it.
That’s the key, isn’t it?
It’s like our dear ones. We know the flaws, but love them anyway. Of course, like people, it helps when the rest of the package is wonderful, as is the case with that gorgeous, unjustly forgotten record. Can still remember DH’s 5-star review of it for Q, where he compared it—rightly—to ‘Automatic for the People’ in the beauty of its music. I know it was a hellish process for all concerned, but sometimes I wish Youth had got the chance to produce all their albums. Mind you, they’d never have got to album four, I suppose, so it’s a stupid argument.
there's also the thing that
you know the albums title track is just around the corner which kinda helps in this particular case. It's somewhat akin to eating your greens first...
(whilst we're on the Crowdies Love-in here, i trust y'all have headed over to www.crowdedhouse.com for the new single)
Bit controversial...'Day of the Lords' off 'Unknown Pleasures'
Always found a bit too dirge-like even by Joy Division standards, especially when they had tunes like 'Digital' or 'Autosuggestion' that ended up as off-cuts on compilations.
Sloop John B
is the best track the sorry-arsed Beach Boys ever recorded
I'll throw in the obvious
Maxwell's Silver Hammer off the otherwise perfect Abbey Road.
Also the Noel Redding songs on Hendrix's albums (e.g. Little Miss Strange)
>
Can't agree!
'Little Miss Strange' and 'She's So Fine' lighten the sometimes over-serious (normally on the part of the fans!) vibe surrounding Jimi.
My favourite track on 'Are You Experienced' is, I suspect, the one that might qualify for this topic....'Remember'.
Just a fantastic soul tune.
I don't think the Fabs (Paul, especially) wrote for rock scribes in 2010, even though they always do pretty well in the Top 100 lists.
'Yellow Submarine' is a song for children.
'Maxwell's Silver Hammer' is a nonsense Bonzos-type song.
'Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da' (bound to be mentioned soon) is an inspired Ska/Rocksteady pastiche which all the reggae guys rushed to record as soon as they heard it!
For me, all these songs add to the group's appeal rather than diminish it.
I heartily approve of nonsense
and love the Bonzos dearly.
But even so, there's something about "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" that I find really quite nasty and not funny at all... it's a track to skip for me, every time.
Definitely agree...
... with Maxwell's Silver Hammer. I've often thought that Abbey Road would have been better if McCartney had somehow written Mr Blue Sky to take its place instead.
He already had...
... the middle bit of "A Day In The Life" - (woke up, got out of bed) - Jeff Lynne lifted it for MBS.
Yes but
If you're going to nick something, best to nick something good, innit?
Leonard Cohen
Jazz Police - I'm Your Man
Love Calls You By Your Name - Songs of Love & Hate
Two of his best albums, two of his worst songs, both unlistenable to my ears.
Neil Young
would have been well advised to leave Motorcycle Mama off Comes A Time. I actually quite like it, but it's just wrong for that album.
Jungle
On Out Of The Blue by ELO I hated it for years and then something clicked and I realise it is a work of genius how did that happen ?
'Cos it's Great
all that footstamping tomfoolery. Guaranteed to make me smile.
Double post
sorry
'Sugar Lump'...
on Bless The Weather by John Martyn. The problem I have with it is not so much that it's an average song; rather it is so out of keeping with the sound and mood of the rest of the album.
Rats
You beat me to it. I think it is average though, phoned in 12 bar blues.
I could've done without...
"Masterman and Baby J" on Randy Newman's "Land of Dreams"
"Jungle Work" is the only stinker on Warren Zevon's otherwise immaculate "Bad Luck Streak in Dancing School"
Dancing in the Dark on Born in the USA
Just doesn't fit.
Similar to Hungry Heart on The River. Two songs just so out of place in their surroundings?
I know Landau was pushing Bruce to write a hit "pop" single but surely it could've been recorded as a stand alone piece rather than tacked into Born in the USA?
Jon Landau gets some stick about this...
...but it’s always seemed unjustified to me. Whether you like ‘Dancing in the Dark’ or not (I love it), it’s—sonically, at least—the epitome of what the album was meant to be—Bruce’s grab at the big brass ring of commercial superstardom. Have never seen anything wrong with that myself; more importantly, it did exactly the job they wanted it to do: 20-odd million album sales.
Don’t much care for ‘Hungry Heart, but it’s not the first thing that’s coming off ‘The River’. And, of course, it was pretty much the same story with that song. Landau prevented Springsteen giving it to The Ramones (I think it was them) because he knew that was the one that was going to push him to the next level.
Actually, Landau’s a fascinating figure. Just consider what he’s been up to in the last 15 years with James Cameron. (I suspect Springsteen’s comparatively fast work-rate in that time has something to do with his divided attentions. Mortality may be playing its part, of course. I’m glad, but I’m one of those who love the recent albums and think Brendan O’Brien’s the best producer he’s ever had.)
Searching for the Young Soul Rebels
One of my all-time favourite albums, every song being excellent with the exception of "Love Part One", a terrible, misanthropic piece of "poetry" read out with adolescent self-importance over a squally saxophone background, its only merit being that it only lasts for about a minute, then its straight back into the wonderful "There There My Dear".