Entertainment For Lively Minds
Where a band's first single is completely unrepresentative of what they became
Posted by Mousey on 28 September 2011 - 10:11am.
I saw Bowie on TV recently doing a version of Cream's "I Feel Free", which sent me back to listening to Cream, and this, their first single, which Ginger Baker apparently hated. Certainly it's totally different from 20 minute jams on "Crossroads".
And the other one for me in this line of thinking is ver Quo in their first incarnation
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Those HJH's
Love Me Do is pretty far from Helter Skelter...
Fresh Cream
Being a little picky here but Cream's first single was I believe 'Wrapping Paper'
Isn't that what the OP said?
Maybe your browser won't let you see the video clip?
It's also
not that close to what they were playing in Hamburg and the Cavern at the time.
Kate Nash
Her distinctly odd first single Caroline's A Victim was nothing like the melodic piano pop that followed.
Talk Talk did this brilliantly
going from wonderful synthpop to Mark Hollis' astonishing solo album. You'd hardly think the first single and the last album come from the same person, although at the same time there's a beautiful flow and development to the work.
Well said.
As I write this "Ascension Day" has popped up on my ipod. They went through some metamorphosis didn`t they?
I stiil like their first album though...I think you can just about hear a few signs of what they were to become. Or I could be talking b******s.
Blur - There's No Other Way
and Ocean Colour Scene's Sway.
Baggy chancers grow into far different bands
She's So High
She's So High was Blur's first single; There's No Other Way was the first to chart. But your point still stands Mr Dog (or should I call you Six?).
Scritti Politti
The Sweetest Girl was very different to their later output.
Their first
was 'Skank Bloc Bologna', which sounded nothing like 'The Sweetest Girl'. I remember first hearing TSG on an NME cassette (I think) and not believing it could be the same group.
That's
a shared memory, Gary.
Gah! You're right of course
SBB was the one with a detailed breakdown of the costs of making the single wasn't it?
I think TSG was on the NME C81 tape, track one side one if I recall correctly.
You're right
Slightly different version to the eventual single.
Mmmm, NME C81.....
Faithless ...
... on the other hand, sounds very different to their other output and anybody else's output ever, sadly. It's a great song. I often sigh for what Scritti Politti could have been, on the strength of that.
The Pink Floyd
Evolved fairly rapidly from 'Arnold Layne'...
Yeah
Pity about that
Not sure...
In fairness Meddle, DSOTM and Animals were far more interesting that the rather drug addled nonsense that the Barrett Floyd delivered.
Other opinions available etc.
Fairports....
...If I Had a Ribbon Bow
Soft Machine's "Love Makes Sweet Music"
debut single from 1967 was light, jolly accessible pop, giving only a slight hint of the gargantuan slabs of oddball progressive jazz which were to follow just three years later.
Cream, Quo, Floyd, Fairport
Personally, dare I suggest that they all went slowly downhill after their debuts...?
EDIT: ... and the Softs as well... ?
Little thing....
I'm not sure Cream played 20 minute jams on "Crossroads". The live version on "Wheels of fire" is a model of restraint and economy. Plenty of other examples of course. My school band used to attempt to emulate the majesty of a 20 minute versions of ""Spoonful"....trust me, it was more horrible than you can possibly imagine.
There's some kind of delightful irony in...
...a song called 'Spoonful' routinely ending up as a whole bucket- or barrel-full.
Hate to come over like Mr Coe in the podcast today
But of my various versions of Crossroads, the longest is the 8:30 version on the Derek and the Dominos 'Live at the Fillmore' reissue. Most others (and there are many others, I'm afraid) clock in at or below the five minute mark.
I do have a 16:59 version of 'Spoonful' from an Oakland bootleg. Restraint and Economy are not the words I'd use to describe it...!
I'm sure I have read
that the famous version of Crossroads from Wheels of Fire was edited down from a much longer version. I haven't heard the song in years but I seem to remember the edits in the solo being pretty obvious.
UB40
Album 1 - Food for thought
Album 2 - One in Ten
then....come up to date. Labour of Love IV. How did it go so wrong ?
A Pedant Writes...
...Signing Off and Present Arms, surely?
But your point is well made - those first two albums were cracking great slabs of 'UK Pop Reggae' (© Joe Strummer). Everything else - not so much.
Present Arms in Dub
Apparently one of the most returned records in UK Pop history and certainly filled the trays at the old Goldhawk Road branch of Record and Tape Exchange.
"There's no singing".
UB44 - also a pretty good album. Still have the holograph sleeve!
Kraftwerk
The experimental and atonal widdling, plonking and binging on their first album/s gave no hint of what was to come.
You could also argue that The Dan's Can't Buy A Thrill was entirely unrepresentative of subsequent waxings because Donald Fagen wasn't on vocal duties.
Subsequent Waxings
TMFTL
I think Man Of Soup might enjoy this...
...it's 'Portable People', Ten Years After's first single and a million miles away from the 12 bar boogie of EVERYTHING ELSE they recorded thereafter (and yes, I quite like this too):
I actually bought this...
...haven't given it a thought for years. On another tack, where would YouTube (and we) be without European TV stations and their reluctance to throw anything away?
Absolutely, Mike!
...I have a copy on 45 too (albeit bought 2nd hand in the 80s).
As for European TV stations - couldn't agree more. The German and to an extent Danish stuff has been a boon to documentary makers for years but it seems that its only relatively recently that the likes of Sweden and France have cottoned on to what they have. Ditto the Montreux Festival TV archive (though the 1970 Quintessence concert, broadcasst from the event on Swiss TV, has yet to circulate...)
Certainly, it's only recently that a whole slew of French TV stuff has started being seen on youtube etc. Great examples would be a concert by the 1970 Fairport Convention, a whole two concerts by the mighty Mahavishnu Orchestra (Mks 1 and 2), Van Morrison's Them doing 'Gloria', numerous Jethro Tull 1969-70 clips, the pre Pierre Van Der Linden Focus miming... endless goodies!
I give you the first James single....
.... nothing like what was to come.
They have certainly had some peaks & troughs in their career.
This is a peak
Tori Amos
in big-hair, 80's hell -
Moody Blues
In their early days (with Wing Denny Laine but pre Hayward and Lodge) were a pretty nifty British blues band. Can't find their first single A side Steal Your Heart Away, which, (I think, but I could be wrong!) was a Bobby Parker cover, but here's the B side, Lose Your Money (But Don't Lose Your Mind) from Ready Steady Go!
Dennys....
...I've often thought this curious: there's hardly anyone in the world called Denny, let alone in pop, and yet Paul McCartney ends up with two in his band at the same time (Laine & Seiwell) in the 70s. What are the chances of that?
Apart from those two, wasn't there one in the Mamas & Papas?
But that's it, isn't it? Not another Denny in sight (And no, we're not counting 'Sandy Denny'!)...
Denny Cordell...
...who, linking up nicely with previous post, produced the Moody Blues' Go Now, not to mention Whiter Shade of Pale and Joe Cocker's With a Little Help from My Friends. Then started Shelter Records and signed J J Cale. That's enough to be going on with. A Denny among Dennys, wouldn't you say?
What sort of a name is Denny, anyway?
Is it an 'abbreviation' of Dennis? Or a name in its own right?
In Denny Laine's case...
...it's an abbreviation of Brian Frederick Arthur apparently.
I've no idea, Paul...
...if Denny Laine were a hugely wealthy entrepreneur, he could be a Dragon's Denny, couldn't he?
And didn't Blondie have a single about two people called Denny?
Denny Dias
Longtime Steely Dan guitarist.
I was at school with a Denny too, now that I come to think of it.
and the footballer...
... Denny Spercamp.
Denny Upham
Original member of Spinal Tap when the band formed in 1966. Keyboardist. Fired in 1968.
And for comics buffs
There's Denny O'Neill (Although I believe he has reverted to Dennis of late)
XTC
From the spiky pop of the 3D e.p, to Apple Venus. Can't quite find the words to try and sum up Apple Venus, without sounding horribly pseud-ish.
Like Talk Talk, a band which got better over their career.
Alanis Morrissette
Started with this:
BTTOP: 10CC.
A perfect example. First single, definitely hit material, but also definitely not typical of their then, and subsequent, output.
Creep
I always thought that single and the follow up Anyone Can Play Guitar gave no hint that The Bends was coming. I bought Pablo honey and thought it was ok and didn't take much notice when The Bends came out. All of a sudden they were massive.
Genesis
First single was a god-awful Jonathan King produced pop song: The Silent Sun.
They got better.
Then they got worse.
Adam and the Ants
Young Parisians.
The lyric advised us that they "Talk nothing but F-rench". No Burundi drumming, pirates or BDSM fantasies to speak of. Bonkers.
living in the 80's
depeche mode - 'dreaming of me' to 'wrong' in 30 electronic years!
japan - 'adolescent sex! to 'ghosts' in 4 years!
jean michel jarre - 'oxygene' to 'oxygene' re-recording... er hang on a minute!
Altered Images
The debut single 'Dead Pop Stars' is mordant post-punk, and then they lightened up for all the pop-hits.
this nearly happened
This did
Both suck.
The Fall - Repetition
"Repetition" off the Fall's debut EP, "Bingo-Master's Breakout!" was completely unrepresentative of what the band became.
Mark E. Smith snarls and rants away like an old drunk in a bus station:
"We've repetition in the music
And we're never going to lose it - ah!"
... oh, hold on a minute...