In the same way I believe one can learn more from the worst movies than the best cinema has to offer, the book The Worst Rock ’n’ Roll Records of All Time taught me the same it true about the worst rock albums; at least, as far as the opinions of Jimmy Guterman and Owen O’Donnell are concerned.
This book was clearly a labor of love. After all, if one has a deep love for any art form, one is also going to feel strong contempt for the works in that media that most offend them. It’s like how a great many cultures have a god which then has an equally powerfully opposing force. Yin, meet Yang.
The text is divided into two sections, with the first half devoted to singles. This is the less controversial portion of the book, largely populated with such easy targets as Melanie’s “Brand New Key”, Richard Harris’s “MacArthur Park” and, at the pole position, Chuck Berry’s “My Ding-a-Ling”. I know I heartily concur with “American Pie” being one of “winners”. And I share with the authors a deep hatred for Stephen Stills’s “Love the One You’re With”, which espouses the kind of mentality which made me so thoroughly identify with Primal Scream’s “Kill All Hippies”.
Of course, there are some songs I am baffled by being so honored by the authors here. I was most startled by seeing Cat Stevens’s “Moon Shadow” at position 28, even if I can concede it is one of his flimsier efforts from the era when he was in top form. Still, I wouldn’t describe his works as expressing “the emotional depth and philosophy of breathy sixth-grade girls”, as the authors do here. Other selections, such as singles by Richard Simmons and Irene Ryan (“Granny” on The Beverly Hillbillies) present fish to easily shoot in a barrel of novelty records.
There are easy targets in the second half, as well, when the focus shifts to albums. Really, nobody will challenge the appearance of discs by Joel Grey or Joey Bishop. The inclusion of The Starland Vocal Band is controversial if only because an album is overkill, and any sane person knows “Afternoon Delight” should have been in the singles, and placed higher than the album it is included on does on its respective chart.
The albums half of the book brought a sea change to my musical tastes because I had already been exploring recommendations from other books as to what was allegedly the best the form could offer. Through those, I discovered such challenging albums as Trout Mask Replica. But it was Guterman and O’Donnell’s book which directed my attention to a great many albums that were even more interesting.
For example, I was just beginning an obsession with The Velvet Underground when I acquired my copy of this book, and I was stunned to learn that band continued after Lou Reed departed. Though it was the Velvets in name only, Doug Yule grabbed three willing participants and an album titled Squeeze was issued in England.
More importantly, this book made me curious about Reed’s Metal Machine Music. It may be their choice for the second-worst rock platter of all time, but their reasons had me thinking this might be something I could appreciate. It was difficult to find a copy of it back then but, once I did, my suspicions were proven correct. Today, I am one of the staunchest defenders I know of this work. And, the authors have a back-handed compliment which is true, that it doesn’t get worse as it goes along.
Like any strongly-held conviction, many of the choices are controversial. The list begins with U2’s The Unforgettable Fire which, no matter how you feel about the band, is ridiculous. There’s the Grateful Dead’s Europe 72, which the authors seem to take to task largely for the live set being spread across six sides of vinyl. Right behind it on the list is Tales from Topographic Oceans by Yes, for similar reasons, as it meanders aimlessly across two discs, each side of which is a single track. Then right behind that is the eyebrow-raising selection of Jethro Tull’s widely-loved Aqualung. The inclusion of The Moody Blues’s Days of Future Passed is literally fighting words to a couple of people I know.
Personally, I was most appalled by Donovan’s first Greatest Hits appearing here. It isn’t that I am a huge fan, nor do I disagree with the authors’ dissection of the insipid “Mellow Yellow”, but the appearance of “Hurdy Gurdy Man” and “Season of the Witch” on that disc pushes that collection into the “win” column for me. Sure, the lyrics of those tracks may not stand up to scrutiny, but the quality of the tunes and the arrangements alone are quite good. Even then, the write-up here about this set led me to see the Dylan doc Don’t Look Back earlier than I would have normally discovered it, to see the bit where Dylan humiliates Donovan by borrowing the other’s guitar and singing the most scathing version of “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” imaginable.
While one could argue endlessly about whether any of the authors’ choices are right or wrong, they are merely opinions, and the two men argue convincingly for their selections. Even better, they write about them cleverly and often humorously. Of Radio K.O.A.S by Roger Waters: “If an album starts with a noise instead of a voice or instrument, the safest course of action is to return it to the store and say it is defective. You won’t be lying.” As much as I hate The Doors, I could never describe Jim Morrison as well as these guys: “dying was the canniest career move Morrison ever perpetuated […] his own actions could never get in the way of his own mythmaking.” Of the unspecified heat in Grenn Frey’s “The Heat Is On”, they speculate it could be the singer “telling his honey the thermostat has kicked in and they can get into the hot tub soon”. And I have gotten great mileage over the years out of this line about Iron Butterfly’s Live: “like finding a brand of aspirin that makes the pain last longer”.
By reading this book obsessively, and returning to it over the years, it helped to shape my own taste in music, and it was not always to be in the line with that of the authors. I was very slow to find any merits in Tales of Topographic Oceans, yet repeated listens of the first two sides has made me appreciate moments which are overwhelmed by the dross in which they are enmeshed (as for the second disc, it is completely disposable). And the Dead’s Europe 72 is the one live album of theirs I have come to love, an expertly curated distillation of multiple stops of the band’s most significant tour.
What is interesting from a historical perspective is how much public opinion has shifted on some of the discs trashed here since the book was published over three decades ago. Number three is Dylan’s Self-Portrait, and I agree with both its inclusion and placement, but it has been undergoing a critical reassessment since 2013’s box set of the sessions. Bowie’s Never Let Me Down was remixed and even partly redone for a 2018 reissue. Elvis Costello’s Goodbye Cruel World was first given a deluxe reissue by Rykodisc, with the liner notes beginning with gratulations extended to the buyer for acquiring his worst album, only for a subsequent Rhino reissue to apologize for that remark, as the album had by then undergone a reappraisal. Myself, I still think the album is garbage, yet it has even been succeeded since then by an even worse platter, Kojak Variety. Song Cycle by Van Dyke Parks is savaged as “a classic precisely because most fans have never heard it.” They go on to associate it with The Beach Boy’s legendarily mysterious “lost” album SMiLE, which would not see release for more than a decade after the book’s publication, and Parks’s album has quite a following today, even if I do not appreciate it.
Their top (well, really, bottom) pick is Having Fun with Elvis on Stage, a weird “talking album only” from the appointed King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, which is composed of only the dialogue between songs in live sets without including a single note of music. While I can understand the poor reputation such a record might receive, I found it to be mildly amusing at points. It also conveys what I am imagine was the sensation of rabid fans getting to see him live. It is that kind of enthusiasm which had me to eventually visit Graceland and discover that it is truly the happiest place on Earth, Disney be damned. Also, the record has been perversely influential enough to likely be an inspiration for Relaxation of the Asshole, a similar “talking only” live album from Guided By Voices’s Robert Pollard.
Guterman would quickly follow-up this book with his choices for the best records, a volume which was to hold a mirror up to this one but which is, alas, nowhere near as interesting. As concerns the best of anything, there is usually remarkable consensus as to what people believe to be objectively “great”. Many people may not personally love Sgt. Pepper, but they will concede it is a work worthy of canonization. But when it comes to the worst, many people likely won’t even remember the soundtrack to cinematic excrement Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, where Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees try to be The Beatles. But Guterman and O’Donnell remember, and I am forever grateful to their book for not only forensically examining such bombs but for also making me question my own tastes in music.