The Damned
In the spirit of Thanksgiving I’d like to give thanks to some of my most beloved bands starting with the Damned who are not only one of the best punk bands but one of the best rock bands ever. Period. The Damned made history for being the first British punk band to release a single, an album and to tour the U.S. But these facts and their well chronicled taste for anarchy often overshadow the fact that the Damned made four stellar albums—Damned Damned Damned, Machine Gun Etiquette, The Black Album, and Strawberries. How many bands can say that? Almost thirty years on the Damned are still going strong.
Just this month the band released a cracking new single, “Little Miss Disaster” (note: iTunes mistakenly switched the song with a live version of “Anti-Pope”). It’s a shame that the Damned remain highly under appreciated despite the band getting increasing recognition and respect in recent years due to punk (or at least what passes for it) going mainstream. Here’s hoping that next year’s new album makes it five great releases for the group.
Love
Love created one of the ten best albums ever in
Forever Changes, an LP that reflects life, its joys, its hardships and everything in between, as well as any record has. Arthur Lee, who was the lead singer and played guitar for the group, wrote most of the album in his early twenties. At the time (1967) Lee was convinced that he would die after Forever Changes was recorded, which is perhaps one reason why the record has such gravitas and intensity. Side one of
Da Capo is brilliant, too. The remarkable bookend to the story of Love is that in the past few years he staged
a mesmerizing comeback after serving time in prison. Then the band dissolved this year. Although Lee appears again to be battling his demons again, don’t count him out just yet.
The Stranglers
The Stranglers have made fifteen albums since forming in 1974, fearlessly experimenting album to album while always maintaining their distinctive sound characterized by Dave Greenfield’s swirling keyboards, J.J. Burnel’s beefy bass and Hugh Cornwell’s one of a kind voice that snarls as easily as it croons. The current singer is Paul Roberts who replaced Cornwell after he left to pursue a solo career in 1990. It took a while but Roberts finally came into his own on the band’s highly recommended Norfolk Coast, released in 2004. The revitalized band, which has A-list musicians in Burnel and Greenfield, is slated to release its 16th album next year.
Captain Sensible
The colorful guitarist for the Damned deserves his own spot on this list because he has recorded so much quality material on his own outside the group. Known best for “Happy Talk,” which went number one and is not at all representative of his recorded oeuvre, Captain has a heart warming voice, plays incredibly good guitar, and can contribute on keyboards and bass, too. (In fact he also drummed for Wreckless Eric on the Damned’s current tour!) For all of the Captain’s charming and frequently hilarious antics, he is extremely serious about his commitment to various political causes, including animal rights, and backs up his beliefs with actions. Because Captain doesn’t take himself too seriously far too many critics ignore his incredible musical output in favor of “serious” artists who present themselves as being important even though their output is not. (Full disclosure: Captain contributed music (“Brain’s Theme”) to the film Skinned Deep®, which my brother Gabe Bartalos wrote, directed and created special effects for. I, as part of the Keyboard Kids, also contributed music to the film.)
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are to music as Red Bull is to the beverage world. A sweet, propulsive cannon ball of power, Buzzcocks songs skip along at lightning speed, zigzagging their endorphin producing melodies through heart, mind and soul. Pete Shelley, Howard Devoto and Steve Diggle created the power/pop/punk template in 1976 and few have come close since in terms of matching their majesty. If you can see them live by all means do. They still thrill.
Catherine Wheel
Catherine Wheel was easily one of the best bands of the 1990s. Essential albums include
Adam and Eve and
Ferment. The band more or less called it a day five years ago but former frontman Rob Dickinson just returned with a great new solo album—his first—and recently played a set of dates in the Northeast including one in New York City that
I recently wrote about.
Bad Religion
Greg Graffin, who holds a Ph.D. in Zoology from Cornell University, fronted one of the best and fastest bands in the 1990s. Graffin took what he learned at school and put it to work singing with urgency about global warming, entropy, anthropocentrism (go look it up!) and the limits to faith unaccompanied by constructive action. It’s hard to pick a best album but I would give the nod to Against the Grain. The band is still going strong and shows no sign of slowing.
Stiff Little Fingers
The next time someone insists that U2 is Ireland’s greatest musical export, tell the person to buy Stiff Little Fingers’ first four albums and to get back to you. Though Jake Burns often sings about politics he is most powerful (at least to these American ears) when addressing the personal. Burns’ lyrics compel you to look in the mirror and ask how true you are being to yourself—a common theme. Even better, he doesn’t just push you to face your problems he inspires you to actually do something about them.
The Replacements
The Minneapolis-based Replacements’ first six albums represent 1980s alternative rock at its best when ‘alternative’ actually meant something. Their music was raucous, loud and fun but also spoke profoundly to teenagers’ concerns. As Paul Westerberg’s song writing skills developed and grew more expansive the quality stayed high though the testosterone quotient gradually faded. Everything up to and including Pleased to Meet Me is highly recommended.
Stew
The singer, guitarist and lyricist extrordinaire is a creative juggernaut, especially live. Often described as Afro Baroque, Stew’s music has psychedelic influences, too. (
See last week’s Top 10 for more.)
