Wednesday, March 21, 2012

DJ Alan Freed hosted the first rock ‘n’ roll show: March 21, 1952






The first Moondog Coronation Ball was held in Cleveland. The event is generally considered the first rock ‘n’ roll show in the U.S. Featured acts included a mix of black and white performers intended to attract a racially mixed audience. Among the acts were Paul Williams’ Hucklebuckers, Tiny Grimes’ Rockin’ Highlanders (featuring Screamin’ Jay Hawkins), The Dominoes, and Danny Cobb. At the time, nearly all performances, radio stations, and record labels were racially segregated.



DJ Alan Freed, who conceived and promoted the event, is credited with coining the term “rock and roll.” The event took its name from “Moondoggers” – the nickname he gave his listeners. Freed came to Cleveland’s WXEL-TV in April 1950 and began his late-night, rock-n-roll-themed Moondog show on WJW radio in July 1951. He went to New York in 1954 and left the business in 1959 after involvement in a payola scandal. He died in 1965 at age 43.





The event, held at the Cleveland Arena, proved a bit of a fiasco as promoters continued selling tickets long after they’d reached the venue’s roughly-10,000 seat capacity. At least some of the additional tickets have been attributed to counterfeiting. It was estimated that 20,000 fans showed up. When they couldn’t get in, the crowd broke down the doors to storm the arena. Local authorities shut down the concert after the first song for fear of rioting.


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Saturday, March 17, 2012

Fun.’s “We Are Young” hit #1

Last updated 3/16/2021.

We Are Young

Fun. with Janelle MonĂ¡e

Writer(s): Nate Ruess/Andrew Dost/Jack Antonoff/Jeffrey Bhasker (see lyrics here)


Released: September 20, 2011


First Charted: December 17, 2011


Peak: 16 US, 14 RR, 12 AC, 13 A40, 2 AA, 12 MR, 11 UK, 11 CN, 13 AU (Click for codes to singles charts.)


Sales (in millions): 7.0 US, 1.29 UK, 10.28 world (includes US + UK)


Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 831.4 video, 200.0 streaming

Awards: (Click on award for more details).

About the Song:

While they won the Grammy for Best New Artist in 2013, Fun. had been around since 2008, releasing their debut in 2009 and the follow-up, Some Nights, which garnered them their Grammy, in 2012. The song that put them on the map was “We Are Young,” a mix of power pop and alternative rock with an indie spirit which “captures the moments of youthful exuberance that come with a memorable night out.” SF Lead singer Nate Ruess said the lyrics were inspired by “my worst drinking night of all time.” SF

This song and Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” were hailed for returning rock to the pop charts. Rolling Stone’s Steve Knopper touted the song’s “sprightly pop-novelty feel” WK while his compatriot, Jody Rosen, described it as “rollickingly catchy” and “emo self-deprecation that leavens the bombast.” WK About.com’s Bill Lamb said the song “carries a hook in the chorus that is likely to stop many listeners dead in their tracks.” WK All Music Guide’s Tim Sendra notes Ruess “provides a very human core that grounds things even as the music builds to ornate crescendos.” AMG

Interestingly, the song didn’t become a hit until after landing a Chevrolet ad in Super Bowl XLVI and getting covered for American TV show, Glee. PJ Bloom, the latter’s music supervisor, noted, “Glee doesn’t break bands, we celebrate existing pop success – that’s our core model.” WK He changed his mind after hearing the song once, later calling it one of the “pinnacle song moments of the entire series.” WK

The song was propelled to the top of the pop charts, logging seven weeks of digital sales of more than 300,000 – the first to do so. WK It was the first song since Destiny’s Child’s “Survivor” to log seven weeks with 120 million radio impressions WK and was the most listened to song on Facebook in 2012. SF It was also featured in another ad in Super Bowl XLVII – this time a Spanish language version of the song for Taco Bell.


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Friday, March 16, 2012

100 years ago: “Moonlight Bay” hit #1

Moonlight Bay

American Quartet

Writer(s): Edward Madden, Percy Wenrich (see lyrics here)


First Charted: March 9, 1912


Peak: 18 US, 112 GA, 18 SM, 2 DF (Click for codes to charts.)


Sales (in millions): 1.0 (sheet music)


Airplay/Streaming (in millions): -- radio, 0.16 video, -- streaming

Awards:

Click on award for more details.

About the Song:

“Arguably the best moonlight song ever written,” PS “Moonlight Bay” “conjures up an entire lost era of a slower-paced America that…had plenty of time for gentle spooning in an unspoiled natural setting.” SS It is “a very durable song from Tin Pan Alley about an idyllic setting for romance.” RCG

Edward Madden, who also wrote “By the Light of the Silvery Moon,” penned the lyrics about “sailing across the bay at night in the moonlight while losing one’s heart to true love.” RCG The music was written by Percy Wenrich, “one of the era’s specialists in sentimental ballads.” SS. He came from a musical family wrote a number of hits in the rag genre and performed with his wife, Dolly Connelly, in vaudeville. PS

It was Connelly who introduced the song in vaudeville and took it to #3 on the U.S. pop charts in 1912. It also became a “huge barbershop-quartet song as exemplified by the American Quartet,” JA who made the tune the biggest hit of 1912. CPM

The song was revived by Alice Faye in the 1943 film On Moonlight Bay and again in 1951 in a Doris Day and Gordon MacRae film of the same name. The song has appeared many times in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. WK In 1951, Bing and Gary Crosby took their version of the song to #14. JA


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Last updated 3/19/2023.

Thursday, March 15, 2012

My Fair Lady opened on Broadway: March 15, 1956








My Fair Lady is “the crowning achievement” AZ for lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe. Some consider it to be “the most perfect stage musical ever.” CL “It boasts a magnificent score…witty, intelligent, beautiful, and romantic.” NRR This is “a collection of performances that long ago became a ubiquitous and indispensable fixture of American musical theater.” AZ

The musical was an updated version of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion, a story about “the mythic Greek figure who falls in love with his sculpture.” TM In My Fair Lady, the story focuses on “the relationship between an elocutionist” R-C and “pre-World War I London flower girl Eliza Doolittle, who aspires to a better accent and the social advantages that will come with it.” R-S Its 2,700 performances “gracefully spanned the Eisenhower and Camelot eras, then begat a wildly popular film version, whose 1965 Best Picture Oscar capped the show’s decade of prominence.” AZ





The cast album “captures landmark performances by Julie Andrews, Rex Harrison and Stanley Holloway.” NRR Andrews was a “twenty-year-old revelation” ZS as “the fairest of all ladies,” ZS making the “loverly…score soar” ZS with her “glorious voice and emotional range.” ZS Harrison is “effortlessly charming” ZS in his recreation of the stage role as “Professor Henry Higgins (he had also appeared in the film adaptation of…Pygmalion.” R-S

“The show yielded an astounding number of songs that became standards, including the luminous I Could Have Danced All Night and I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face.” TM Among the other gems in this “embarrassment of riches,” AZ including On the Street Where You Live, The Rain in Spain, Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, and Why Can’t the English?.



For the movie version, Harrison and Holloway were back again, but Andrews wasn’t deemed enough of a star although “embarrassingly, by the time the movie opened, Mary Poppins had made her more than enough of a star to do so.” R-S Audrey Hepburn stepped into the role with the singing voice dubbed by Marni Nixon, who “was an accomplished Hollywood voice ghost, having previously sung for Deborah Kerr in The King and I, Natalie Wood in West Side Story, and Rosalind Russell in Gypsy.” R-S

Ultimately the soundtrack paled to the cast recording, which was considered critically and commercially more successful. The cast recording sold 8 million copies in the U.S. and topped the Billboard charts for 15 weeks. It also spent 19 weeks atop the UK charts.




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Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Bruce Springsteen releases his “Occupy” album Wrecking Ball

Wrecking Ball

Bruce Springsteen


Released: March 5, 2012


Peak: 11 US, 11 UK, 3 CN, 2 AU


Sales (in millions): 0.2 US, 0.07 UK, 1.06 world (includes US and UK)


Genre: classic rock veteran


Tracks:

Song Title (date of single release, chart peaks) Click for codes to singles charts.

  1. We Take Care of Our Own (1/19/12, 11 AA)
  2. Easy Money
  3. Shackled and Drawn
  4. Jack of All Trades
  5. Death to My Hometown (5/12, --)
  6. This Depression
  7. Wrecking Ball
  8. You’ve Got It
  9. Rocky Ground (4/21/12, --)
  10. Land of Hope and Dreams
  11. We Are Alive

All songs written by Bruce Springsteen.


Total Running Time: 51:40

Rating:

3.739 out of 5.00 (average of 24 ratings)


Quotable: Wrecking Ball will go down as his ‘Occupy album.’” – Steve Leftridge, PopMatters.com


Awards: (Click on award to learn more).

About the Album:

“There will be those that believe a millionaire rock star singing about poor people and hard work, as Bruce Springsteen so passionately does on his powerful new album Wrecking Ball, to be the height of hypocrisy. But to do so would be both shortsighted and uninformed. First, as a pedigreed Jersey shore rat raised in economically depressed Freehold, N.J., Springsteen knows a thing or two about economic frustration. And, secondly, anyone who has seen Springsteen perform at any one of thousands of shows over the past 40 years, with or without his E Street Band, is well aware that he packs his lunch pail every night and welcomes overtime.” BB

On his 17th album, Springsteen “soars on familiar strengths: passion, roadhouse swagger, muscular melodies and a fighting spirit.” UT “With its gritty portrayal of the danger at hand when lives are lived on the edge of collapse,” BB Ball explores “familiar working class territory, but with a vigor and fearlessness not seen since 2002’s equally-inspired The Rising.” BB While “The Rising will always be remembered as Springsteen’s ‘9-11 album’, it’s a safe bet that Wrecking Ball will go down as his ‘Occupy album’.” PM Ball occupies the same space as Woody Guthrie’s ‘This Land Is Your Land,’ celebrating the possibilities of the American Dream while acknowledging the pain of its failures.” AV

Springsteen’s manager, Jon Landau, says, “Bruce has dug down as deep as he can to come up with this vision of modern life…The writing is some of the best of his career.” AZ Springsteen has always been adept at creating “specific character vignettes that speak to larger social concerns,” PM but here his protagonists “are less elusive about whom to blame for their troubles…taking on the real culprits unambiguously.” PM “On a tear to raze Wall Street and raise Main Street, Springsteen grapples with Everyman frustration and dread” UT and the devastation brought on by “Wall Street greed and corruption.” WK It is “his angriest and most politically pointed [work] to date.” UT

The album has largely been reported to be “‘wild’ and ‘experimental’” PM and, indeed, it is “very rock and roll with unexpected textures, loops, electronic percussion, and an amazing sweep of influences and rhythms, from hip-hop to Irish folk rhythms.” WK “Ron Aniello was brought in to produce Wrecking Ball, a move that paid off…the sonic embellishments gracefully support the songs and rarely feel indulgent or detract from the almighty melodies on the record.” PM Landau describes it as “a rock record that combines elements of both Bruce’s classic sound and his Seeger Sessions experience, with new textures and styles.” AZ

The album is notable for its inclusion of Clarence Clemons’ last work with Springsteen and the E Street Band before his death in June 2011. WK The album also features E Street Band members Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg, and Patti Scialfa. WK Touring members Charlie Giordano and Soozie Tyrell are also featured, WK as are special guests Tom Morello and Matt Chamberlain. WK However, Springsteen mostly “relies on players from 2006’s We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions, Wrecking’s closest cousin in his catalog.” UT

“We Take Care of Our Own”
First single, We Take Care of Our Own, is a “pounding, patriotic rocker [which] serves as the album’s moral compass.” BB It uses some of the same “gospel-soul influences that informed ‘My City of Ruins’, a song that asked for spiritual redemption in the wake of 9-11.” PM “Take Care” “puts forward the radical idea that poor people are actually worthy of dignity and respect.” AV It is one of Springsteen’s classic “scathing message songs that sound patriotic, an irony lost on nearly everyone who hears them.” PM On top of that, “the whomping beat and cinematic string swooshes are rousing in an inescapably Pavlovian sense.” AV

“Easy Money”
“The heat-packing protagonist out looking for Easy Money rails against ‘all them fat cats’ who think his desperation is funny” PM in this “midtempo two-step hootenanny.” PM “Rootsy and percussive, …[it] features one of Springsteen’s more charismatic vocals and free-wheelin’ lyrics but, with its talk of Smith & Wessons and burnin’ hellfire, the song’s undercurrent of rough intentions belies its jaunty musicality and bright choral arrangement.” BB

“Shackled and Drawn”
Then in “Shackled and Drawn, a hammer-slinging chant mined from the great folk songbooks,” PM Springsteen advises “Stand back, son, and let a man work.” “Cajun inflections and a sprightly rhythm power this workingman anthem, but once again Springsteen juxtaposes the music against frustration and powerlessness.” BB

“Jack of All Trades”
Jack of All Trades is “a gorgeous, piano-based ballad” BB complete with a trumpet solo and guest Tom Morello “lending one of his patented machine-shop guitar solos.” PM A man assures “his love he’s willing to do whatever labor necessary for them to get by.” BB His “anger at the rich bubbles shockingly to the surface in the final verse (‘If I had me a gun / I’d find the bastards and shoot ’em on sight’).” AV

“Death to My Hometown”
“While ‘Jack of All Trades’ sounds like a funeral, the St. Patty’s Day penny-whistle march of Death to My Hometown is the wake, with Springsteen slipping into a well-soused brogue and leading a charge” AV against “the ‘vultures’ and ‘greedy thieves’ who ‘destroyed our families’ factories and…took our homes’ and hopes to ‘send the robber barons to hell’.” PM “It’s the record’s fieriest song, making like Dylan circa ’63 by piling on a catalogue of grievances that build to a perfectly-timed shotgun cock-and-blast.” PM

“This Depression”
This is “a cohesively designed album, sequenced to rail against economic injustice by way of catchy, rattling folk-blues numbers on the first half of the record and to rise with spiritual redemption in the second half by way of train-a-comin’ rafter-raising.” PM There “is a pervasive element of desperation in Wrecking Ball, but nobody here is giving up. As such, on “the Arcade Fire-like, self-explanatory dirge This DepressionAV the album “starts to change focus, blending worry over financial plight with the need for a healing love.” PM

“Wrecking Ball”
“The whisper-to-a-scream title track,” AV Wrecking Ball, was penned in 2009 in honor of the closing of Giants Stadium and was performed live during the supporting tour for Working on a Dream. WK It “takes on a whole new life in the context of this record.” BB “The version here is a leaner, faster machine, one that combines folk Bruce and rocker Bruce as well as any.” PM It is “a raging state of the union address enveloped in rootsy folk-rock” UT and Clarence Clemons’ saxophone.

“You’ve Got It”
“Nothing here sounds much like ‘70s or even ‘80s Springsteen, but You’ve Got It comes closest to what Bruce used to sound like in its melody and Bruce’s vocal delivery.” PM This “lusty, bluesy mid-tempo” BB is the album’s “lightest moment” BB and “will be the song that divides the Bruce believers, as it’s the most fussily produced of the new songs.” PM

“Rocky Ground”
“Musically ambitious and completely captivating,” BB Rocky Ground speaks of a divine retribution for failing to take care of our own: ‘We’ll be called for our service come Judgment Day / Before we cross that river wide / Blood on our hands will come back on us twice.’” PM It “thematically fits perfectly with the tone of the album…but, with its inspired vocal arrangement, gospel underpinnings and Michelle Moore rap, it is unlike anything Springsteen has done before.” BB

“Land of Hope and Dreams”
That song and Land of Hope and Dreams deliver a “gospel-influenced one-two punch” PM as a pair of “spirituals that promise new-day salvation for all lost but faithful souls.” PM “Dreams” dates back to 1999’s E Street Band reunion tour WK and served as a template for songs from The Rising. It has been reworked into “a brighter, peppier take than the one released on 2001’s Live in New York City, and when Clarence’s unmistakable sax (one of just two appearances on the album) busts out of the bridge, it’ll bring you to your knees.” PM It is “a broad, anthemic slice of Americana” BB which has been called “one of Springsteen’s finest modern originals,” PM but also knocked as “a self-conscious anthem that paints broadly rendered populist imagery about a train carrying ‘losers and winners’ to a mythical place beyond the stars. It’s an uplifting statement…[but it] is a stump speech, not an artfully rendered short story.” AV

“We Are Alive”
Closing track, We Are Alive,“could be alternatively titled ‘Tales from a Graveyard’.” BB It is “a campfire song for ghosts of the oppressed, martyred strikers, protesters, and immigrant workers. The song, which has an Irish-wake feel to it, is an acoustic number with Springsteen being backed by mariachi horns.” WK The song “both thematically and musically, binds the record’s two halves – pissed-off folk and gospel-laced rock.” PM

The song is “ultimately optimistic, a fitting close to one of Springsteen's best albums” BB where he is “still firing on all cylinders – writing with poetic urgency, drawing on traditions old and new, singing and playing with prime strength and energy, and delivering a new set of killer melodies with fresh sonic wallop. At this stage in a rocker’s career, it’s a lot to ask for, but Springsteen proves again that there’s nobody better to deliver it.” PM

Notes
The special edition of the album adds bonus tracks Swallowed Up (In the Belly of a Whale) and American Land. The former continues the use of biblical themes also found in “Jack of All Trades,” in which “the speaker hopes that ‘we’ll start caring for each other like Jesus said that we might’,” PM “Rocky Ground”, in which “we’re reminded that ‘Jesus said the money changers in this temple will not stand,’” PM and “We Are Alive,” which “invokes “a cross up on Calvary Hill’.” PM “Beyond the obvious allusion in the title, [‘Swallowed’] calls on ‘God’s Mercy’ as a matter of birthright.” PM

“American Land,” which dates back to 2006, WK is “an original, barn-burning Irish jig about the false promises of the American Dream.” PM It originally appeared on an expanded edition of The Seeger Sessions. On that album, “Springsteen resurrected roots traditions—blues, gospel, folk, bluegrass—to serve as musical backdrops that tie old economic injustices to new ones.” PM That album does much to inform this one as Springsteen dipped his toe into the sound of Americana with “trombones, banjos, washboards, and accordions while covering Pete Seeger tunes.” PM

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First posted 3/6/2012; last updated 2/5/2022.

The 2012 Inductees for the Country Music Hall of Fame

2012 Country Music Hall of Fame inductees
Hargus “Pig” Robbins, Connie Smith, and Garth Brooks (left to right)



The Country Music Hall of Fame announced its 2012 inductees today (See the full list of all inductees here). They include:

Garth Brooks will be inducted into the Country Hall of Fame in the “Modern Era Artist” category. His 1989 self-titled debut album with Capitol Records produced #1 songs “If Tomorrow Never Comes” and the career-defining ballad “The Dance.” He amassed 19 #1 songs, including the iconic “Friends in Low Places.” Third album, 1991’s Ropin’ the Wind, was the first country album in history to debut atop the Billboard Top 200 album chart. CM With more than 128 million albums sold, Brooks is the top-selling artist of the Soundscan era, which covers from 1991 to present. TN In 2007, he was named the best-selling solo artist in American music history. CM

During the ‘90s, Brooks was named CMA Entertainer of the Year four times. He retired from touring in 2000 (although he has since returned for limited runs) to move back home to Oklahoma with his daughters. Brooks said, “I feel honored and it’s kind of a mixed emotion of joy and a little bit of guilt…I’m very happy because I didn’t expect it. I was stunned, I guess because if they just got around to Reba last year I thought it was going to be another 10 or 15 years and deservedly so before my name ever came up, if it ever did.” TN He went on to specifically cite Randy Travis and Keith Whitley as contemporaries who should have been inducted before him. TN





Connie Smith is being inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in the “Veterans Era Artist” category, which is open to a singer 45 years after initial national prominence. She was born in 1941 and discovered at age 22 after winning a talent contest which gave her a chance to sing on an Opry-troupe concert. In 1964, Bill Anderson, the headliner of that concert, invited her to sing on Ernest Tubb’s Midnite Jamboree. That same year she signed to RCA Victor Records. Her first single, “Once a Day,” went to #1. She went on to rack up 30 top 20 hits on the country charts and recorded gospel as well. Dolly Parton once said of Smith, “You know, there’s really only three female singers in this world…Barbra Streisand, Linda Ronstadt and Connie Smith. The rest of us are only pretending.” TN





Hargus “Pig” Robbins, a session pianist, is the third inductee for the Country Music Hall of Fame, entering in the “Recording and/or Touring Musician Active Prior to 1980” category. Robbins, who has been blind since 4 because of a knife accident, learned to play piano at age seven when he attended the Nashville School for the Blind. The focus was on classical music, but Robbins integrated his own style of rhythm & blues and country in the style of artists such as Ray Charles and Floyd Cramer. CM His nickname, “Pig,” came from him sneaking through a fire escape at school and playing when he wasn’t supposed to. Robbins’ supervisor said, he got as dirty as a pig. CM

In 1959, he played on his first of hundreds of professional recordings – George Jones’ “White Lightning”, his first #1 hit. Robbins went on to work with Patsy Cline, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, Dolly Parton, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan (on the classic Blonde on Blonde album), Alan Jackson, Randy Travis, Travis Tritt, and his fellow hall inductee Connie Smith. TN He has played on classic hits such as Charlie Rich’s “Behind Closed Doors” and Crystal Gayle’s “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue.” In 1976, Robbins won the CMA Instrumentalist of the Year award and in 2000 he received the CMA Musician of the Year Award. In 2007, he was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame. Veteran producer Billy Sherrill, who discovered Tammy Wynette and worked on legendary tracks such as “He Stopped Loving Her Today,” has said Robbins “was probably the best musician I ever worked with.” TN


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Monday, March 5, 2012

I Heard You Missed Us - We're Back!

Originally published in my "Aural Fixation" column on PopMatters.com on March 5, 2012. See original post here.

image from popmatters.com


The David Lee Roth-fronted Van Halen returns after a 28-year absence. Who else has made fans wait that long? Quite a few, it turns out.


All those who strolled their school halls in the late ‘70s or first half of the ‘80s clinging to a spiral notebook with a “VH” logo scrawled across the front knows that line from Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher”. Yes, boys. We did miss you and we’re glad you’re back.

New bassist Wolfgang Van Halen was walking the schools and crushing on high school educators just a few years ago. When Wolfie was born in 1991, his father and uncle were seven years removed from the classic 1984 album, the last to feature David Lee Roth. 

With made-for-video Diamond Dave at the helm, Van Halen used that album to expand their hard rock audience to the MTV generation. The same kids who plopped down allowance money for Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Cyndi Lauper’s She’s So Unusual, and Madonna’s first album also bought 1984 by the boatloads. The album took Van Halen to its greatest commercial heights with US #1 single “Jump” as well as hits “Panama”, “I’ll Wait”, and the aforementioned “Hot for Teacher”.

Then Roth took his hairy chest and spandex out for a solo spin and never returned. Guitarist Eddie Van Halen, drummer Alex Van Halen, and then-bassist Michael Anthony recruited Sammy Hagar, one of the era’s few rockers with bigger hair than Roth. Although the faithful whined, somebody was still buying Van Hagar product, since they churned out four #1 studio efforts over the next decade. In the post-Red Rocker era, an ill-fated 1998 endeavor with Extreme’s Gary Cherone as the next dip into the whose-turn-is-it-now-to-front-our-group pool put a nail in the VH coffin.

Now, 14 years later, the lid has been pried off. With the release of A Different Kind of Truth, Wolfie experiences a studio album by Roth-era Van Halen for the first time in his life.

In his lifetime, Wolfie has also witnessed some of Pop’s contemporaries resurrect themselves. After The Long Run (1979) the Eagles let 28 long years fly by before reuniting for Long Road Out of Eden (2007). The Who went missing for 24 years between It’s Hard (1982) and Endless Wire (2006). The Cars shut the door after Door to Door (1987), finally revving up their engines again with Move Like This (2011). Steely Dan had gone incognito for two decades when Two Against Nature (2000) thrust them back into the limelight with a Grammy win for Album of the Year.

Guns N’ Roses have been showered with hype and scorn for most of Wolfie’s lifetime, thanks to constant postponements for the infamous Chinese Democracy. After the one-two punch of a pair of Use Your Illusion albums in 1991, a collection of covers for (1993’s The Spaghetti Incident?) was assumed to be a stopgap while the group readied its true follow-up. As the years and band members disappeared, frontman Axl Rose watched his image transform to that of an obsessive, egomaniacal micro-manager. When Chinese Democracy (2008) finally arrived, the votes opposed outweighed the votes in favor.

Rose isn’t the first agonizingly meticulous leader to unravel his band in the pursuit of perfection. Tom Scholz has traversed a similar “I’m committing career suicide” path. With Boston, he has released a scant five albums over a 36-year career. Scholz and Co. quickly followed the once best-selling debut in history (1976’s Boston) with Don’t Look Back (1978), but have done nothing timely since. An eight-year gap built demand for Third Stage (1986), sending the album and its lead single, “Amanda”, soaring to the tops of the US charts, but then the boys who gifted us with “More Than a Feeling” didn’t feel up to trotting out another release until Walk On (1994).

Fans walked away in droves and Corporate America (2002) made a paltry dent in the public’s wallets. Album #6 is supposed to come out this year. Scholz is the only remaining original member.

There have been other rock titans who never really went away, they just went solo while their bands went on holiday. Iggy Pop and David Johansen have regularly thrust product on the market, just not with their original groups. As such, their band’s reunions were perceived more as publicity stunts. Some 32 years separated Johansen’s New York Dolls’ Too Much Too Soon (1974) and One Day It Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006). The Stooges, led by Iggy Pop, topped that with 34 years between Raw Power (1973) and The Weirdness (2007). In both cases, the long overdue returns went unnoticed by the general public considering neither the bands nor their anchors were ever mainstream.

There are superstars who’ve likely boosted their careers with short-term vacations. In 1983, Def Leppard exploded with Pyromania. Fans went manic in anticipation during the four-year wait for Hysteria (1987). However, it proved an even bigger blockbuster than its predecessor. The group went dormant another five years before Adrenalize (1992), which left fans a little less than juiced.

Maybe Def Leppard needed all that time off to do some wardrobe shopping;
image from toptenz.net

Similarly, Michael Jackson took five years between Thriller (1982) and Bad (1987). For the rest of his career, at least four years transpired between albums. Considering his constant tabloid presence, his occasional chart absence probably helped make the arrival of new product a welcome event.

In 1975, Bruce Springsteen was eager to get a new album back on the shelves in the wake of Born to Run’s success. However, contract disputes led to a three-year work stoppage in what seemed like an eternity then. Bruce had other idle periods, taking five years off between Tunnel of Love (1987) and the double whammy of Human Touch and Lucky Town (1992) and seven years between The Ghost of Tom Joad (1995) and The Rising (2002). He’s been on fire ever since, seemingly rejuvenated by his time away. The upcoming Wrecking Ball will be his sixth studio effort this century.

Speaking of Springsteen’s newest, a few other classic rockers are slated to return to the scene in 2012. Kiss is due to release Monster, their first project since Sonic Boom (2009). The latter album was 11 years in the making. It became the group’s highest charter, peaking at #2 in the US, but it was also their first non-gold seller.

Rush returns this year with Clockwork Angels, their first album since Snakes & Arrows (2007). Their longest layoff, however, was between Test for Echo (1996) and Vapor Trails (2002). The delay had an effect on Rush similar to what Sonic Boom did to Kiss; Trails was Rush’s fourth consecutive top ten album, but first in their career to miss the gold mark.

Classic rockers aren’t the only ones to disappear for long stretches. Sade and Kate Bush have each retreated from the spotlight for at least decade-long absences. Country fans pray that Shania Twain and Garth Brooks end their decade-long sabbaticals. Of course, English folk singer/songwriter Vashti Bunyan makes them all look prolific. Frustrated with the poor reception of her 1970 album Just Another Diamond Day, she abandoned the music industry. What fan base she had acquired waited 35 years for her next effort, 2005’s Lookingafter.

My original concept for this article was an open request to one of my favorites to get back in the studio. I wouldn’t expect most readers to be familiar with Fish. No, I’m not talking about the jam-band Phish, led by Trey Anastasio. Fish is a Scottish singer who got his start with the British-based Marillion in the early ‘80s. That neo-prog outfit became my favorite band after Misplaced Childhood (1985), but Fish only stuck around for one more album, Clutching at Straws (1987), before embarking on a solo career. From 1990 to 2007, he never went more than three years between releases, unleashing nine studio undertakings.

However, nothing has happened since. Wikipedia indicates a working title of A Feast of Consequences for a 2012 release, but twitter and Facebook posts from Fish mention only current gigs, not any time spent in the studio.

Fish ponders asking Wolfie to work on his next album;
image from yerburystudio.com

I can wait a little longer. Long gaps in a treasured artist’s discography are painful, but endurable. An eventual return is better than a complete disappearance. VH and GNR fans survived. The Rush and Kiss armies have soldiered on. Even if The Stooges and New York Dolls could hardly capture the raw power of their initial work, there’s something cool about them treating their fans to long-awaited comebacks. Fish, just promise me Wolfgang Van Halen won’t be starting a band with his son before you’ve put out new product. I’ve missed you and I’ll be glad when you’re back.