New York Dolls – “Bad Girl / Subway Train” 7″ (1972)
Funny how, after you’ve owned a record for a few decades, it becomes invisible, even when you are looking right at it. I don’t know why I forgot about this one, but it is certainly essential listening and you should be downloading this right now instead of reading. Two tracks from the 1973 LP, recorded with no frills and released in 1972, with a sloppier, more raw sound. Do you need any further endorsement?
THE TRACKS:
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I’d like ‘em better if they weren’t from New York! The 2nd LP was the better of the two–give it another chance.
Man, I’m tryin’, but a funny thing about music these days is that the polished studio sound just ain’t as appealing as the raw, ad hoc version for some of these bands. It’s too bad the quality of the recording sucks, but there’s more “soul” in some of these rawer tracks.
For instance, one of my favorite bands of all-time, The Stitches, sound so much better on live recordings than their most recent studio album. Their studio tracks are super-polished and refined, where’s that punk drunk passion? I think they left their beers outside the studio…
OK, “Who Are The Mystery Girls”, “It’s Too Late”, “Chatterbox”, and “Human Being”? It ain’t a great LP from start to finish, but those are some fine early punkers and I don’t think they were overproduced, unlike the first LP which was kind of ruined by Todd Rudgren. A lot of contemporary Punk bands are using digital recording because it’s cheaper and readily available. The early Punk bands used reel-to-reel, which sounds different, just like an LP sounds different from a CD. Even a crude, simple mix on basic equipment seems to have more “polish” these days because the technology has advanced. Watch the Generation X scene where they are recording “Kiss Me Deadly” in “The Punk Movie”–that’s how they ought to do it!
Inside every cynical person, there is a disappointed idealist
This is probably spam, but at least the spam from your site is halfway witty.
Wow, I’ve never been too impressed by the NYD, but I cant stop listening to this record, both songs are classics.