|
Reports of punk-rock's demise may be somewhat exaggerated, but even supporters of the music are beginning to acknowledge that the boomlet may have peaked. The artists associated with the punk movement who have artistic merit will likely survive any collapse of the trend (which will occur when the rock press stops writing about and record companies stop signing new punk-related bands).
So while Patti Smith, the Ramones, Talking Heads, Television, Johnny Rotten (perhaps without the Sex Pistols) and one or two other English bands will not only endure but possibly flourish, the dozens of other bands that have coasted on their coattails will be as fondly remembered as such relics of the psychedelic '60s as the Syndicate of Sound, the Music Machine, the Strawberry Alarm Clock and the Chocolate Watch Band.
Already the hyphenators have come up with a new packaging term to replace punk-rock, a term that garnered quite a worthy pile of press clips but failed in the primary aim of all such tags: to facilitate the sale and promotion of records The new term these days is power pop. PP, as it may come to be known, is alleged to combine the energy of punk-rock with the more saleable melodies and song structures of unhyphenated pop.
Despite the fact that Jane Pauley has already spotlighted power pop in a Today show segment, it should be obvious that it is virtually impossible for power pop to exist because every rock 'n' roll song of the last 20 years can qualify. The Beatles, Beach Boys, The Who, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Raspberries, Cranberries, Strawberries, Moonberries and Shaun Cassidy are all power pop. So, in the words of Bill Murray, tell anyone who tries to sell you a power pop group to get outta here.
But there are some new albums out by artists linked in some way to punk-rock and PP that transcend all categories. Punks could claim these performers, and so could the power poppers (if there were such a group), who might install one of them as the movement's guru. Nevertheless, as Alan Freed must have said at some point, this is rock 'n' roll.
Nick Lowe: Pure Pop For Now People (Columbia). Those who would foist such a thing as power pop on us could use Nick Lowe as a fine musical argument. Lowe, who headlines at the Bottom Line Tuesday night, was perhaps the penultimate English journeyman musician-producer-songwriter of the early part of the 1970s. But his associations with artists like Brinsley Schwarz (as singer, songwriter, guitarist), Graham Parker and the Rumour (producer), Dave Edmunds (collaborator), Elvis Costello (producer), the Damned (producer) don't prepare you for the depth, width and unadulterated pleasure of the first album under his own name. The album, by the way, was released in England under the title "Jesus of Cool."
The album cover does hint at Lowe's restless musical nature. He appears as blue-jeaned singer-songwriter, love-and-peace hippie, black-leather punk, laid-back country rocker, heavy-metal hitter and pop rocker, all of which Lowe is, or has been, in some way.
Lowe is nothing if not rock's master thief. He has an unerring knack for copping familiar riffs from immediately identifiable sources, and recycling them with manically provocative, relentlessly witty lyrics. "They Called It Rock," for example, is the best Chuck Berry song that Chuck Berry never wrote, the story of the ascension and disintegration of the rock 'n' roll dream:
"Well they cut another record, it never was a hit
Someone in the newspaper said it was shit
The drummer is a bookie, the singer is a whore
The bass player's selling clothes he never would've worn
They called it rock.
©1973 Riviera Global Productions Ltd.
Lowe's adept borrowing is always similarly tongue-in-cheek. It seemed too ironic to be unintentional that "So It Goes," the first single released on England's maverick Stiff Records (for which Lowe was something of a house producer), opened with the guitar line from the Yardbirds' "Shapes of Things."
Lowe's "anger" at David Bowie for naming an album after him (Low) apparently had not abated when he released Bowi on Stiff last year. On the new album, Lowe does a song called "(I Love the Sound of) Breaking Glass" that musically mirrors Bowie's "Breaking Glass" from the Low album.
Other manifestations of Lowe's poised dementia abound. "Nutted By Reality" mixes a guitar line from the Jackson 5's "I Want You Back" and lyrics about the emasculation of Fidel Castro. "Little Hitler" is a reworking of Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas' "Little Children."
"Rollers Show" is an adoration of the Bay City Rollers to the tune of "Goin' to the Chapel" that Lowe, Dave Edmunds and Rat Scabies of the Damned first performed under the name Tartan Horde. (It was the follow-up to the Tartan Horde's hit in Japan, "Bay City Rollers, We Love You.") The clincher is "Marie Provost," about a silent film star eaten alive by her dachshund: ("She was a winner / who became the doggie's dinner.") Part of Lowe's genius is that he can carry off such tunes without ever seeming crass or tasteless.
Elvis Costello: This Year's Model (Columbia). Lowe is the producer of Costello's superb debut album, My Aim Is True, and this equally strong follow-up. While Lowe is a master of all pop sensibilities, Costello focuses his intensity into a singular, almost monomaniacal vision of anger and frustration. The roots of Costello's music are in the 1960s punk-rock of Question Mark and the Mysterians, The Seeds, and the Music Machine. Each group featured the portable electric organ that sounds so gratifying to those who remember Question Mark's "96 Tears," yet sounds fresh to those who came of age with the rock of the 1970s.
Costello's musical persona is that of the solitary searcher, obsessed with phrases and images instilled by an overdose of exposure to mass media. His music communicates the rage of a repressed moralist whose self-absorption and fantasies could turn him into an assassin.
Apparently, he has his problems with women. "I don't like other guys looking at your curves / I don't like you welkin' around with physical jerks," he sings in "Living in Paradise." In another song, he asserts that "Lip service is all you'll ever get from me." In the enforced suicide pact of "Hand in Hand," he insists that "when I go down, you're gonna come with me."
But Costello's most triumphant song is "Radio, Radio," perhaps the best individual song that anyone has released this year. Costello has no patience with the profit sensibility that dominates rock radio these days: "I wanna bite the hand that feeds me / I wanna bite that hand so badly," he sings. Yet the song is also an attack on those who passively accept mediocre entertainment, which is a fate that those who listen to Costello regularly will manage to avoid.
| 
