By: David Schultz


Grace Potter & The Nocturnals: Not The T-Bone Burnett Album

U-Melt: Perfect World

Pavement Reunion

Peter Gabriel: Scratch My Back
With his last studio effort coming in 2002, Peter Gabriel’s most significant accomplishment over the past few years has been getting reverently namechecked by Vampire Weekend in “Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa.” Not typically known as an interpreter of other’s material, Gabriel will release Scratch My Back, an album exclusively of covers, on February 15. Gabriel’s latest will include his take on David Bowie’s “Heroes,” Paul Simon’s “The Boy In The Bubble,” Bon Iver’s “Flume,” Arcade Fire’s “My Body Is A Cage” as well as versions of songs from Elbow, Lou Reed, The Magnetic Fields, Randy Newman, Regina Spektor, Neil Young, Radiohead and The Talking Heads.

Blues & Lasers New Album

Pete Townshend At The Super Bowl

Backyard Tire Fire: Good To Be

The Kinks Reunion

Vampire Weekend: Contra

A Genesis Reunion With Peter Gabriel

Labels: Backyard Tire Fire, Genesis, Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, Pavement, Peter Gabriel, The Kinks, The Who, U-Melt, Vampire Weekend

By: David Schultz

The Eighties proved to be an awkward era. Not only did it give us the Safety dance, purple rain, luftballons, the moonwalk, Wang Chung and Terence Trent D’Arby, it’s the decade that gave us the phrase “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto.” In addition to cringeworthy fashion statements like suits with pastel-colored T-shirts and teased, feathered hair for both men and women, the Eighties brought us into the computer age. In the arcades, we played Pac-Man and Missile Command and at home, we slowly converted our record collections to compact disc.

The emergence of MTV, which stressed an artist’s appearance as much as their talent, the widespread incorporation of synthesized and computer generated music and the initial growth of rap drove many established and iconic acts from the Sixties and Seventies into an identity crisis as they tried to keep up with the changing times. The Eighties may have served as the birthing ground for U2, R.E.M. and The Replacements but it also marked the time that the careers of many artists from the Woodstock generation went into a tailspin.

Since Oliver Stone has decided to bring Gordon Gekko, the decade’s archetype of amoral greed, into the modern day with Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, it’s probably not a bad time to look back at the Eighties and see how it nearly dimmed some of the rock era’s brightest lights.

ERIC CLAPTON
By the Eighties, Clapton’s storied reputation as a blues-rock demigod had started to diminish as he battled drug and alcohol addiction. Where Slow Hand once dallied in the studio with the likes of Duane Allman, Steve Winwood and George Harrison, the Eighties saw him palling around with Phil Collins and releasing slickly produced albums like Behind The Sun and August. At his 80s nadir, Clapton found himself in heavy rotation on MTV with “It’s In The Way That You Use It,” his tie-in with The Color Of Money, and in Michelob commercials with his re-recorded version of “After Midnight.” Capitalizing on everyone’s need to replace their LPs with CDs, many artists had their greatest hits combined into comprehensive multi-disc box sets. Clapton’s Crossroads, which covered all aspects of his career, created the blueprint for such collections and reawakened interest in the master bluesman. Trading in the T-shirt and jeans that had become his stage wear in favor of dapper suits, Clapton stopped dabbling in 80s-style superficial blues-rock and once again found his muse.

GRATEFUL DEAD
Defying all logic, the Grateful Dead had a run of success on MTV. In 1987, The venerable jamband titans released In The Dark, easily their most accessible album and, in line with the times, made . . . shudder . . . a music video for its lead single “Touch Of Grey.” In between Peter Gabriel and Dire Straits videos, the shaggy manes of Jerry Garcia and Bob Weir played interchangeably with animatronic skeletons while Deadheads watched on with bemused horror. In line with the chorus of “Touch Of Grey,” the Dead survived the Eighties by persevering and simply outlasting the nonsense until it came full circle. Whatever fair-weather fans they attracted through their MTV exposure quickly fell to the wayside as the Dead remained on the road, paving the way for the modern jamband scene to flourish. Always a mighty live draw, the Dead toured regularly up until Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995. By that point, the brain cells in which Deadheads stored their memories of the Dead’s brief 80s flirtation with mainstream popularity had long been killed.

LOU REED
With classics like “Walk On The Wild Side” and “Street Hassle” a distant memory, the former leader of the Velvet Underground spent most of the Eighties churning out albums like Legendary Hearts and Mistrial, filled with formulaic, barely inspired three chord rock songs. Never the most harmonious singer, Reed got in into his head that he should be acknowledged as one of the originators of the burgeoning rap scene, insinuating as much on “The Original Wrapper.” At the end of the decade, Reed turned his razor-sharp intellect on two subjects on which no one would doubt his expertise, New York City and Andy Warhol. With the release of New York in 1989 and his collaboration the next year with John Cale on Songs For Drella, a eulogy for Warhol, their former mentor and patron, Reed found relevant topics to apply his blunt, streetwise poetry to, reemerging as one of America’s most prolific and outspoken songwriters. Like he had for the decades before, he continued to sort-of rap most of his lyrics but once Marky Mark & The Funky Bunch released “Wildside,” Reed seemed to lose all interest in drawing comparisons between himself and the world of hip hop.

GENESIS
Next to ZZ Top, there was no more unlikely MTV superstar than Phil Collins. Looking more lecherous old man than video icon, Collins worked ahead of the curve; his slick videos for “Sussudio” “Take Me Home” and “In The Air Tonight” defining the early 80s Miami Vice influenced video era. As a solo star, this was fine. However, as the de facto leader of Genesis, one of the titans of progressive rock, this influence resulted in the band that created The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway being represented by Spitting Image puppets on “Land Of Confusion” and hawking Michelob beer with “Tonight, Tonight, Tonight.” Unlike many of the other artists on this list, the Eighties didn’t almost kill Genesis, they put the band six feet under. After the unbearable We Can’t Dance, the band went dormant with Collins officially leaving in 1996, relegating them to a cult status amongst those who would flock in droves to see a reunion with Peter Gabriel. However, like all bands from the Seventies, there is always one word that generates gobs of cash: reunion. The 2007 Genesis reunion tour touched on their forgettable 80s success but wisely kept things focused on their pre-80s majesty.

DAVID BOWIE
David Bowie's descent into Eighties inanity didn’t take place during that decade – although some would be pressed to call shenanigans on “Blue Jean,” “China Doll” and his mincing prance with Mick Jagger on “Dancing In The Streets.” Rather, in 1997, Bowie engaged in the type of Wall Street chicanery that made Michael Milken the poster boy for Wall Street greed: junk bonds. Coming up with the novel idea of selling securities backed by royalties on his pre-1990 recordings, Bowie Bonds were initially greeted with optimism and an A3 rating. Coupling Bowie’s retirement from the stage with the digital revolution and its crippling effect on music sales in any medium, the lack of a sustainable interest in Bowie’s back catalog has resulted in the Bowie Bonds being continuously downgraded, reaching a level just a touch above junk bond status.

JETHRO TULL
When a band that’s made their career on English blues, sprawling progressive rock suites and flute-based epics becomes fascinated with the synthesizer, nothing good could result. In the case of Jethro Tull, nothing good did result. Instead of flirting with Bach compositions and mandolin solos from a prior century, Ian Anderson attempted to give the band a new wavish Eighties feel on albums like A, Under Wraps and their most Spinal Tappish effort, Broadsword And The Beast by including electric violins and decidedly non-rustic synthesizers. The extreme divergence from medieval acoustics and progressive rock digressions alienated all but the most loyal of fans. Tull came to its senses by the end of the decade but at that point it’s unclear if anyone was still paying attention. It surely baffled everyone when they won the inaugural Grammy for Best Hard Rock Album for the mostly acoustic Crest Of The Knave.

AEROSMITH
This is the band from the Seventies that proves to be the exception to the rule. Already in trouble at the start of the decade, the band was on the steep path to nostalgia tours and obscurity when Run DMC helped resurrect Aerosmith’s career with rock and rap music’s original mash-up, “Walk This Way.” Being associated with the groundbreaking rap trio and the emerging genre of music hardly hurt Aerosmith, nor did it do Run DMC any harm to get the rub from one of the hardest rocking bands of the previous decade. In the era before gangsta rap and Kanye West egos, a classic rock act reaching across the aisle in this fashion seemed more revolutionary than conciliatory or opportunistic. Once the singles from Permanent Vacation started to make their way into heavy rotation on MTV, Aerosmith became one of the first bands that actually was saved by the Eighties.

NEIL YOUNG
As if the success of Buffalo Springfield was an albatross hanging around his neck, Neil Young found himself a Vocoder and a synthesizer and let the world know what “Mr. Soul” would have sounded like if it had been recorded by robots. Embracing the new technology a bit too eagerly, Young released Trans, an album chock full of Eighties-style robotics and unlike anything Young had ever done before. Geffen Records, who released Trans, hated it so much, they skipped constructive criticism and sued him for making it. Young’s dabbling in computer rock was thankfully short lived but it sent him into a downward creative spiral and he spent the decade making the weakest music of his career, getting banned from MTV in the process for glibly mocking the network and its advertisers. Fortunately, the first Bush era awakened the rocker; when Young released Freedom and the incendiary “Rockin’ In The Free World,” the past decade faded blissfully into the ether and Young took his rightful spot as the flannel clad Godfather of Grunge.

THE WHO
The world’s loudest band presciently sat out the decade, saving the world from finding out what other synthesized epics Pete Townshend had in mind when he wrote “Eminence Front.” Instead, we got sappy fluff like “After The Fire” from Daltrey’s Under The Raging Moon and Townshend succumbing to the urge to rap on “Face The Face” and to the need to adapt The Iron Giant into a misfire of a concept album. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Tommy, The Who reunited and embarked on the first of many, many reunion tours. Always a reliable draw, Townshend, Daltrey and, until his death in 2002, bassist John Entwistle, kept The Who’s legacy alive, waiting until the oughts to put out any new material bearing The Who’s mighty trademark. Daltrey’s voice may have lost its once-mighty power and Townshend battled tinnitus, but once they launch into “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Baba O’Riley,” people don’t seem to care, mainly cause Townshend remains one of the best guitarists alive.

ZZ TOP
In the Eighties, ZZ Top performed the nearly impossible task of transforming themselves from a gruff, rough-and-tumble Southern-rock trio into neo-lecherous, bearded purveyors of synthesized blues. It’s hard to begrudge them the success they found by reinventing themselves as it resuscitated their flagging career . . . but at what cost? Nowadays, when ZZ Top enters the conversation, it’s impossible to extricate the images of the three of them mysteriously appearing with a bevy of hot, leggy women to offer up the keys of their cherry red vintage Ford to some deserving soul. Beguiled by the synths, ZZ Top turned the blues into a cartoon wonderland, stripping the music’s back door man ethic of every ounce of its menace.

Happy Thanksgiving. The daily Earfuls will return after the holiday.

Labels: Aerosmith, David Bowie, Eric Clapton, Genesis, Grateful Dead, Jethro Tull, Lou Reed, Neil Young, The Who, ZZ Top

Labels: Genesis, Live Reviews