{"id":365,"date":"2016-02-01T04:09:05","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T04:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/?p=365"},"modified":"2016-02-01T07:18:33","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T07:18:33","slug":"10-unessential-rock-albums","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/?p=365","title":{"rendered":"10 Unessential Rock Albums"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published in\u00a0Alternative Press<\/em>\u00a0magazine<\/p>\n

Disclaimer: A.P.\u2019s spineless editor in chief wishes to make it known that the opinions expressed in this piece are not necessarily those of the A.P. staff, our imaginary parent companies, everyone buying coffee at Starbucks right now, or the office cat.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ever force-fed yourself the likes of\u00a0The Canterbury Tales\u00a0<\/em>or\u00a0Citizen Kane\u00a0<\/em>simply because some snob in a turtleneck made you feel like dirt for quoting\u00a0Crank Yankers\u00a0<\/em>at a cocktail party? Okay, that\u2019s a bit personal, but we\u2019ve all been victims of critical hype. Fact is, critics can be agonizingly off-base, even when they agree. So heed these words and give an Anna Nicole\u2013wide berth to these unessential \u201cessentials\u201d you\u2019ve no doubt been told to revere.<\/p>\n

Pink Floyd:\u00a0<\/strong>The Dark Side of the Moon\u00a0Capitol Records
\n<\/em>A space-rock concept piece featuring sax, gospel singers, and producer Alan Parsons (ask your parents; watch them snicker) may sound like a recipe for comic relief. But this heap was hailed by hi-fi snobs and headphone geeks the world over, and spent nearly 25 years in the\u00a0Billboard\u00a0<\/em>Top 200. You\u2019d think a run like that would preclude some good songwriting.<\/p>\n

Bob Dylan:\u00a0<\/strong>Blood on the Tracks\u00a0Columbia\u00a0Records
\n<\/em>Plodding, unpleasant, and tuneless (even by mid-\u201870s standards), the ingenious songwriting of Dylan\u2019s early- and mid-\u201860s material is conspicuously absent. The desire to break new ground is supplanted by a simple need to stay afloat. Dylan sounds creatively drained and spiritually empty\u2014and not in a hip, Beck-ish kind of way.<\/p>\n

Bruce Springsteen:\u00a0<\/strong>Born in the U.S.A.\u00a0Columbia\u00a0Records
\n<\/em>Inarticulate political ranting is a hallmark of lefty rock, but Springsteen\u2019s message was so vague that the respectably unpatriotic title track here became synonymous with American redneck flag-waving. The only thing that saved these limp fist-pumpers from becoming timeless football chants was their lack of melody.<\/p>\n

Patti Smith:\u00a0<\/strong>entire catalog
\nExactly how a pretentious hippie came to help personify punk is a riddle of history akin to the origins of the Easter Island monoliths. Bad poetry and feeble jamming smacks more of a Doors bootleg than the straight-ahead roar of true NYC punk. But at least Smith had ugly hair.<\/p>\n

Kiss:\u00a0<\/strong>entire catalog
\nAlthough Kiss were critically reviled, positive remarks from sensible folks like the Melvins and Tom Morello lead a new generation of music fans to believe the band were something more than a sub-literate version of the New York Dolls. Historical note: The bias against drummer-written songs likely has its origin with Peter Criss\u2019 horrific piano ballad \u201cBeth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Talking Heads:\u00a0<\/strong>Speaking in Tongues\u00a0Sire Records
\n<\/em>When the Beasts of Bourbon sang \u201cI want to get funky, but I don\u2019t know how,\u201d they were addressing the\u00a0true\u00a0<\/em>white man\u2019s burden. And there\u2019s arguably no better example of bone-white funklessness than\u00a0Speaking in Tongues,\u00a0<\/em>an arrestingly thin attempt at electro-funk from these Rhode Island art-school wanks\/pop genii.<\/p>\n

U2:\u00a0<\/strong>The Unforgettable Fire\u00a0Island Records
\n<\/em>An\u00a0extremely\u00a0<\/em>forgettable album in which a fiery post-punk combo paint with watercolors instead of blood. The result is one dull study in blurriness and one good song\u2014\u201cPride (In the Name of Love)\u201d\u2014that propelled this morass into multi-platinum status. Ambient-period Brian Eno in the producer\u2019s chair did little to help the band tighten up their songs.<\/p>\n

The Police:\u00a0<\/strong>Synchronicity\u00a0A&M Records
\n<\/em>When a guy calling himself Sting started messing with New Age jazz and un-ironically dreaming up song titles like \u201cTea in the Sahara,\u201d punk had finally become as arrogant as the prog-rock it had set out to destroy. Just check out Sting on the album cover: shirtless, buff, and reading Jung\u2014a picture is worth a thousand bad rhymes.<\/p>\n

Elvis Costello:\u00a0<\/strong>entire catalog
\nBack in the day, Elvis Costello seemed like one of those disturbing cultural anomalies\u2014like Nazism, the wine cooler, or Patrick Nagel\u2014whose momentary popularity could only be explained by temporary mass psychosis. But 25 years (and many more pounds) later, Costello somehow remains exulted by an establishment that buys scant few of his albums.<\/p>\n

Velvet Underground:\u00a0<\/strong>White Light\/White Heat\u00a0Verve Records
\n<\/em>Apparently, Lou Reed and crew used up their best ideas on the debut album with Nico. The few gems here are so buried within self-absorbed mire like the eight-minute \u201cThe Gift\u201d and the 18-minute \u201cSister Ray,\u201d only professional miners should investigate.<\/p>\n

\u2014John Pecorelli<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published in\u00a0Alternative Press\u00a0magazine Disclaimer: A.P.\u2019s spineless editor in chief wishes to make it known that the opinions expressed in this piece are not necessarily those of the A.P. staff, our imaginary parent companies, everyone buying coffee at Starbucks right now, or the office cat. Ever force-fed yourself the likes of\u00a0The Canterbury Tales\u00a0or\u00a0Citizen Kane\u00a0simply because […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":366,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365\/revisions\/366"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnpecorelli.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}