There are some albums the human soul just doesn't need to hear.
For example, any album that continues the exact same formula as the conceptually suspect, yet hugely successful album that preceded it in hopes that lightning will strike twice.
Such titles would include:
ZZ Top's Afterburner and Recycler LP's. which followed the massively successful Eliminator, which saw the band update their sound with synths and drum machines. Once this stylistic departure met with unimaginable chart success and introduced these Tejas blooze merchants to a new generation of fans, the band felt compelled to continue mining the same territory until just about everybody was sick of the gag.
Figuring my ears have had it too easy as of late, I revisit the band's third collection of refried synth-boogie, Recycler, and am immediately regretful. From the overly timid opening cut, "2000 Blues", it is fully apparent that the band has painted themselves into a corner. On one hand, they ache to return to their blues roots and be a real band again, but, on the other, they just can't bring themselves to abandon the golden goose that put 'em back on the map.
The end result is an album heavy on schtick that never quite takes flight.
Speaking of schtick, it's somewhat unfortunate that the one song most folks remember from Graceland was the cheesiest of the bunch, "You Can Call Me Al". Largely forgotten is how reverently Simon and longtime producer Roy Halee blended the singer's pop songwriting sensibilities with zydeco and South African roots music. It was one of the few times in music when an old dog learned a new trick that didn't reek of insincerity.
Sadly, the same could not be said for Paul Simon's follow-up effort, The Rhythm of The Saints, which employed a slight variation on Graceland's, trading its South African influences for those found mostly in Latin America, but found none of the success. While it charted high its first few weeks, hitting #4 on the U.S. album chart, none of the album's singles dented the Top 40 and was quickly ushered to the cut-out bins.
While the level of songwriting took a precipitous drop, Simon's biggest mistake may have been waiting four years between albums, during which time just about every label set out to capitalize on what they perceived to be America's newfound interest in zydeco and world music and, in doing so, saturated the marketplace.
Of course, the most notorious example of milking a concept dry might just be Starship's No Protection. Arriving two years after the monster success of Knee Deep In The Hoopla, which spawned the #1 hits "Sara" and "We Built This City". Starship's second offering was so hell-bent on adhering to that winning formula that they could have just as easily called it Neck Deep In The Hoopla and nobody would have cared.
Unlike Paul Simon, Starship had had the good sense to strike while the iron was still relatively warm, but, even so, everything about the album seemed calculated.
What makes No Protection such a misguided artistic misfire was that Starship had taken the success of their first effort as indication that they no longer needed to write their own material, much less play on it. Their belief was that, with the aid of producer Peter Wolf (no, not the J.Geils singer), any semi-catchy jingle from outside sources could be transformed into a chart-topping moneymaker as long as any semblance of humanity was removed from the performance.
Sadly, they were absolutely correct as the album's first single, "Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now" went straight to the top of the singles chart.
The criteria for selecting outside material for the rest of the album seemed to be little more than asking themselves "Can we envision this song playing over the end credits of a straight-to-video 'Police Academy' sequel?". If the answer was "Yes", it went on the album.
That's the only plausible explanation for such automated madness as "Beat Patrol" or "Transatlantic", the latter of which was co-written by "Late Night With David Letterman" drummer Anton Fig.
Of course, by the time Starship got around to recording third album Love Among The Cannibals, their self-driving juggernaut no longer seemed to require Wolf's involvement. The album's prophetically titled Top 20 single, "It's Not Enough", doesn't seem to have left much of an impression in the years since the album's release, but, since the band was obviously aiming for immediate results, they largely succeeded.
That they chose to call it a day soon after the album's release is both puzzling and appreciated.
Tags:
if at first you succeed